The Reign of the Usurper and the Soiled Queen
by Winter's She-Wolf
Summary: Robert Baratheon takes the Iron Throne with Lyanna Stark at his side. Based on the prompt: Robert loves his queen, but what of Lyanna's bastard son?
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** This story was written for a prompt at a ASOIAF/GoT LiveJournal site.

**Chapter 1  
**

Dragonspawn! That's what it was. Filthy dragonspawn! A Targaryen just like its father. An enemy to be done away with.

That's what Robert thought when he read the letter Ned sent announcing the rescue of his sister and her newly born bastard.

If the king had been the one to raid the tower, the proof of Lyanna's suffering would have been disposed of immediately. No need for the poor girl to see anything even resembling a Targaryen again after what those monsters put her and her family through.

But Robert hadn't been the one to release her.

No, it was Ned. Honorable Ned – fresh from the outrage of seeing the murdered bodies of the Rhaegar's trueborn offspring and his wife – he had been the one to free Lyanna. He was most surely the one responsible for keeping the infant alive. He was the one demanding mercy for the babe who knew nothing of his family's deeds, a babe who carried just as much Stark blood as Targaryen.

But that was no matter. If Ned wanted the boy, fine. Let him rot in the North, far away from the mother he plagued. Far away from Robert's fury.

Lyanna would be Robert's queen.

There were whispered complaints of course. The bold bandied about words like "ruined," "shame," and even "whore." Whispers be damned! Robert would take no other. Not even a Lioness of the Rock, as Tywin Lannister tried to suggest.

Lyanna Baratheon, the Wolf Queen.

Robert could never picture her as a doe no matter what colors he draped over her shoulders.

The Starks would come straight to King's Landing from Starfall. The people needed a wedding, a proper happy ending to the war that shredded the Seven Kingdoms.

Robert soon received a raven from Ned informing him that they were within half a day's ride from the capital. They had merely stopped at an inn to allow the women to rest. Ned had planned to leave a few guards and the wet nurse, Wylla, there while the rest continued to the capital. But his plans went awry at the appearance of the king.

Impatient for their arrival, Robert impulsively jumped onto the first horse he found and road forth to meet them.

He found the party resting at an inn. As soon as he entered the room, Ned jumped to his feet, weariness in his grey eyes. Looking about, Robert saw a woman standing by a window, humming as she rocked an infant against her chest. The king immediately looked away from the sight and focused on Ned.

"Where is she?" Robert asked. "Where is Lyanna?"

Ned didn't answer the question. "Sit and rest. We can see to ..." But Robert wasn't listening to any of that. Instead he followed his friend's anxious gaze as his eyes darted oh so briefly toward a particular door connected to the chamber. Without ceremony the young king strode toward the door.

"Robert!" his friend cried. "She is resting. Give her -"

But nothing stopped the stag when he was in full charge. He swung the door open so hard he almost broke off the handle.

"Lady Lya-"

The words died as the woman turned around, startled. She looked worn. Older than her 16 years. The kidnapping had clearly taken a toll on her. But Robert expected that. What he didn't expect was to see her with the child. He wasn't prepared to see the way she held the dark haired babe against her chest or the tender way her hands cradled the child close or the almost violently protective way her body stiffened around the boy as her gaze met Robert's.

He was so stunned at the sight of them, for once, Robert could not speak.

Ned's hand rested on Robert's shoulder. "Come away."

"You never said there were two."

"My son, Jon, he is in the other room with his nurse," Ned said. "Come away. Give my sister some-"

"No," Lyanna said, before he could move. "His Grace has seen his share of bastards. I am certain he has fathered a few of his own as well. Why should he turn and hide from my son?"

Ned's hand fell away and Robert strode into the room purposefully, his blue eyes locked on the boy.

If this was dragonspawn, the babe hid it well. No silver crowned his head. Instead, quite a few wisps of straight dark hair grew. No purple tainted those eyes that looked about curiously. They were a wintery gray.

Robert's gaze shifted from the babe's gray eyes to Lyanna's. She faced him with a look he had only seen on men preparing for a duel.

"The boy takes after you," he said.

And Ned, he thought to himself. The babe resembled the two people he loved most. And Robert couldn't claim to love many people.

"He's got a name, don't he?" Robert asked, nudging the child's tiny fist with his large forefinger.

Lyanna's gaze had softened. "Rickard," she said, looking down at the boy sadly. "Rickard Snow, he will be."

After the grandfather he would never know.

"Hand him here, I want a better look at him," the king said.

Robert reached for the babe. After considering the outstretched arms for a moment, Lyanna carefully shifted Rickard into Robert's embrace, making sure he supported the infant's head.

Instantly, Rickard began to fuss. Before he could be taken away, Robert began to rock him the same way he used to with his little Mya.

"I'll be having none of that, little man." Soon, the babe quieted and looked up at him curiously with Lyanna and Ned's eyes. "Ah, there we are, there's a good lad."

The boy was even easier to soothe than his own bastard daughter had been. Robert wondered if this meant he would grow to be a man as quiet and patient as his Uncle Ned, or if he would end up taking after his strong and resilient mother.

By the gods, either way, he wanted to be there to see it.

Robert glanced up at his bride who was watching her son in his arms, her hand brushing his strands of hair off of the little forehead.

The rumbling complaints about Lyanna becoming queen of the Seven Kingdoms despite the dishonor that had befallen her would be nothing compared to what Robert was considering. But as always, the court be damned. The king did as he liked.

"Rickard Snow, you said? I don't like it. It don't fit the boy at all. How about Rickard Waters, eh?"

Lyanna arched an eyebrow and a smile twitched at her mouth as a moment of silence stretched through the room.

"Robert, that's impossible," Ned said, breaking the quiet.

"Why?" Lyanna and Robert demanded together.

"You plan to bring your bastard home," Lyanna said. "You plan to raise him alongside your trueborn son."

"Winterfell is not King's Landing," her brother said. "The court will-"

"Damn the court!" Robert roared.

"I am certain the court isn't pleased about me becoming their queen," Lyanna said. "Should I hide in Winterfell as well? I won't. Neither will Rickard. They might call me the Soiled Queen and my child dragonspawn, but when have I ever cared for what others think? My betrothed does not mind."

Lyanna turned to Robert then. She watched him holding her son and gave him a look she had never given him before. It wasn't the polite smile she treated him with while they were in company or the curious furrow she had when she caught him watching her from a distance.

No, Lyanna looked at him with genuine interest and hope.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Riding into King's Landing at the side of the conquering king, Lyanna knew she must seem like one of the damsels from the songs of gallant knights, despicable monsters, and helpless maids.

Their party had grown considerably since leaving Starfall. In addition to Ned, Howland, Wylla, and the children, they now traveled with several Baratheon and Stark guards as well as a new wet-nurse, Pia, who Robert hired for Rickard.

Grey direwolves and black stags flapped through the air on either side of the party as they road through the city, announcing their triumphant arrival.

Smallfolk and nobles alike lined the streets and hung from windows to welcome their future queen with rising cheers and falling flowers. They arched their necks as she approached, anxious for a glimpse at the woman their new king and the former prince thought was worth making the kingdoms bleed for.

Looking down at them, Lyanna wondered how many of the waving citizens were disappointed with what they saw. They must be expecting a beautiful heroine. A golden Cersei Lannister, an exotic Elia Martell, a rival for Ashara Dayne's title of the most beautiful woman in the Seven Kingdoms.

But they were merely left with Lyanna Stark, a plain girl who cared more for riding through the wolfswood and sparring with her brother than competing with the great beauties of the era.

Lyanna knew herself to be glaringly imperfect. Her face was too long. No ornaments or intricate braids adorned her hair. The riding gown leant to her by Lady Ashara visibly strained around her middle where the weight from the baby still gathered. And most offensive of all, she rode through the streets straddling her mare, despite Robert's urging that she ride sidesaddle, at least as they entered the capital.

So far, the city folk didn't seem to mind their future queen's failings. They stared up at her with happiness and sympathy. Some even shouted out reassurances along with their cheers, as if she needed coddling. That probably cut more deeply than any insults they might have pelted her with.

The poor, tainted girl must feel so lucky to still be wanted despite the stain left upon her, despite the bastard Rhaegar Targaryen got upon her.

_That's what they all think_, Lyanna realized, eyes blazing in icy fury as she stared down into the crowd of smiles. _They have all made a victim of me. Rhaegar Targaryen made a victim of me._

She lifted her chin as she road on, refusing to look meek or frightened or ashamed.

_I am a she-wolf,_ she reminded herself. _I am strong. Fierce. I care nothing for what any of them think._

If King's Landing remained as filled with false smiles and acidic Southron ideals as she had heard, that reminder would be needed frequently.

A large hand curled around Lyanna's fingers. She looked to her left in time to see Robert raising their joined hands in the air and giving a triumphant roar to the crowd.

_And now my betrothed is displaying me like a hard won prize, _she thought_. A wolf pelt held up as a trophy from a successful hunt. Lovely._

A victim and a prize. That's all she had become. How very lovely indeed.

"Why do you look so damn dour?" Robert asked with a laugh. "You're becoming as serious as Ned."

"I don't much like being put on display, Lord Ro- Your Grace," Lyanna replied briskly. "Besides, our victory aside, there really isn't much to smile for, is there?"

She nodded her head sharply toward the Red Keep as it stretched menacingly into the sky ahead of them.

"My father and brother were murdered in that castle," she said, straining every muscle she had to keep any traces of emotion out of her voice even as imaginings of fire and Brandon's anguished face clouded her vision. "A woman was raped and murdered there while her children's corpses lay beside her." Lyanna's eyes shifted away from the red castle to look at her betrothed. "No, I don't think I have very much to smile for, Your Grace."

As she spoke, the grin slowly fell from Robert's face, their clasped hands lowering as well. She expected him to be angry. He just looked surprised, unsure, mayhaps confused.

Lyanna openly examined him, this man who had been her betrothed for so long, this man who fought a war and crushed a dynasty for her, this man she still couldn't bring herself to love or trust.

Robert risked his head right along with Eddard to save her. He wanted to marry Lyanna despite her slashed maidenhead. Even her bastard son of a dragon was welcomed by him—so far.

She should love him. She _should_.

The failure to do so made her feel somewhat inadequate.

In the last few days, he showed nothing but adoration for the dragonspawn she produced. Watching the King growl playfully and make silly faces until Rickard's very first giggle erupted from his small, three-moons-old body made Lyanna's heart ache with happiness and dread.

Happiness because her son might not grow up knowing only guilt and shame at being who he was. Dread because her boy might grow to love Robert only to be put aside when the baby's novelty faded, when remembrances of who he really was stepped forward.

Robert would never be faithful to a woman. She harbored no delusions on that, not even now. So who was to say he would remain true to a child, a bastard, who was not his, who was the son of an enemy?

When Robert came upon them at the inn and took up her cause against Ned's insistence that Rickard go home with him, Lyanna refused to even think of any negatives. Rickard would be with her. That's where a child belonged, with his mother. Growing up with only vague, half-memories of her own mother told Lyanna that. But now, as the future got closer and closer with each step of her mare…

Lyanna shoved all the doubts aside. She knew what was best for her son and the best thing for Rickard wasn't a life spent living kingdoms away from his only parent like a dirty, shameful secret. And her betrothed agreed. No matter what changed in the future, Robert had agreed now and she would hold him to it and that's all there was to that.

As the party made their way up Aegon's High Hill, the crowds seemed to thicken, the voices rising even higher. As the Red Keep's gates opened, a sudden wave of dread seized her, the faces of her father and Brandon coming before her in flashes, along with silver hair, violet eyes, and fire and blood. Lyanna's hands clenched, reminding her that Robert's palm still pressed against hers. They both looked at each other, startled.

Robert smiled and kissed her knuckles. Lyanna looked away quickly, frustration broiling inside her chest. She wasn't afraid. She wasn't! A pile of red rocks couldn't scare her. The she-wolf was stronger than that.

But she wasn't. Lyanna knew that now and so did Robert.

The japing words he was saying that were meant to comfort and bring a smile to her face might as well have gone unsaid for all the attention Lyanna paid them.

Would she be able to walk into the Great Hall to see the place where her father burned alive, where Brandon was strangled to death? Could she settle into a chamber within Maegor's Holdfast knowing what happened to Princess Elia and her babies within those walls?

That's what she wanted to know. Those were the thoughts that coiled around her lungs and squeezed until she could barely breath.

But within the Red Keep, Lyanna found those questions all but forgotten in the wake of something she found almost equally as horrifying: dinning with a pride of lions.

* * *

"I won't marry him!"

Lyanna prowled back and forth along the length of her solar.

Ned sat with his face in his hands. When he looked up, weariness clouded her brother's eyes. But he always looked tired now. As though he had been aged by this war. They all had been.

"Lya..." Ned began.

"I won't!" she repeated, stopping in front of him. "You cannot possibly approve of this. I know you can't."

Ned loved Robert. Loved him as much as his own blood. But not even he could possibly excuse the fact that his beloved friend not only condoned what the Lannisters did to the young prince- a mere babe! - and the princesses, but planned to reward them for their "contributions" to the war.

Settling into the Red Keep earlier that day had been as difficult as Lyanna imagined it would be. Trying not to imagine the bloody stories she heard at Starfall, she yielded to the irrational need to hold her pup even closer while moving into the queen's chambers (for Robert considered that her place already) and only left him in the care of Pia, after giving her long, detailed, and severe instruction on how to best care for him, though the woman boasted of nursing many a noble child before.

Lyanna saw them while approaching the dining hall on Robert's arm for dinner, all the gold and red nearly blinding her.

The Lannisters - Lords Tywin and Kevan, as well as Lady Cersei - stopped at the betrothed couple's approach and bowed just enough to be acceptable.

"Your Grace, Lady Stark," Lord Tywin said by way of greeting.

Lyanna responded by turning to Robert. "What are these people doing here?"

She knew it was a mistake the second the words burst from her lips. She should have nodded, mayhaps even smiled, and told Robert they must speak in private. Lyanna knew it and tried to force herself to care, but could not.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Lady Cersei bristle, rage emitting from her like smoke from a blaze. The girl's father, on the other hand, kept calm and unmoving, his gaze settled upon Lyanna like a weight.

In the end, she and Robert did speak in private, but the conversation did not end to her satisfaction.

Robert gave an exasperated heave. "They helped me win this bloody throne. A seat at our table is the least they want for their trouble. Jon Arryn's trying to scratch up some reward-"

"And the two babes they murdered?" Lyanna asked. "Hitching their wagon to your rebellion in the very last moments of the war makes what they did just?"

"What Clegane and Lorch did-"

"What they did on the order of Tywin Lannister!"

"This was war!" Robert shouted, blue lightning flaring in his eyes. "People die. They kill and they get killed. That's what happens."

Lyanna sucked in a long breath to calm herself. During her recovery in Starfall, she had heard stories of the war while spending her days in the kitchen and stables, making friends with the grooms and other servants. That's how she found out what really happened to her father and brother, not the sparse version Ned had served her. That's how she found out about House Martell's rage at what happened to Princess Elia and her babes. The servants had heard Lady Ashara mourning her friend with her handmaidens. She had received letters from her brother Allem, who returned to Sunspear after the war, detailing the outrages as well as the options the Martells and all of Dorne might take.

Lyanna assumed everyone must be as appalled as the Dornish. Ned's silences on the matter and his grave eyes - always speaking louder than shouts from anyone else - told her that _he_ certainly was, at least.

But the feeling was not shared by her betrothed.

"You would have done the same as the Lannisters had you reached King's Landing first," Lyanna said at last.

The storm cleared from Robert's eyes as shock filled them. "No, no, no! Seven hells, no, I would never- You know I would never- _Lyanna_!"

But she had already walked away, back toward her new chambers, back toward Rickard.

Ned had come to her later, no doubt having spoken to Robert what transpired.

"You want to break the betrothal," he repeated with a sigh.

"How can I marry a man who would reward the murder of children and the rape of a woman?" she demanded. "How can _you_ befriend such a man?"

Eddard didn't look at her. She wondered what he was thinking. Of the shame and dishonor breaking a betrothal would cause, especially after how hard Robert had fought for her. Of his dear friend's pain of losing her again. Of their father's desire for southron alliances to strengthen their House.

Lyanna had thought of that too. Her father wanted them to strengthen their House, strengthen the pack. A royal marriage to a new and popular king would have pleased him and increased the reach of House Stark.

A now familiar ache encased Lyanna's heart at the thought of her father. He would have wanted this marriage for her, for their family. House Stark and the North deserved such a match.

And a part of her - despite her rage - still felt she owed Robert more than the dishonor of breaking their betrothal.

But Gods! Rewarding child killers and turncloaks!

Ned rose. "I'll speak with Robert."

"No." Lyanna closed her eyes and shook her head. "Wait until the morning. I wish to think on it more."

She couldn't act solely on impulses anymore. She couldn't think of just what she wanted. Lyanna knew that now. A lesson she had learned so cruelly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Cersei Lannister couldn't understand it, this alluring appeal that was Lyanna Stark.

She had watched the insipid girl from the castle walls as she rode through the city, hand in hand with the young king. The common people cheered and threw flowers into the air around her. The people loved her. Only the gods knew why.

The few times Cersei had seen the Stark girl before, she categorized her as plain and thought no more of her. Now that the girl had forced herself into the notice of them all by running off with Prince Rhaegar, bearing his bastard, and then returning to her jilted betrothed once he became king, Cersei gave a new appraisal of the northern slut.

Plain would no longer suffice. Now, she was ugly and fat. Her sides visibly strained against what would have been an otherwise lovely lavender riding gown. She looked out of place riding beside the handsome and victorious King Robert, a withered rose wilting in a blooming garden.

If that were not offense enough, Lyanna proved herself a fool as well. To blatantly insult powerful allies – Lannisters at that! – to their faces! The nerve! Cersei may have pitied the girl's ignorance if she hadn't been so offended.

"Lyanna Stark is a savage fool," Cersei announced.

Fingers entwining and circling each other subconsciously, she and Jaime leaned against the windowsill in a rarely used corridor within the Red Keep. Together they looked out at the yard in front of the stables and the sky above.

_What are these people doing here? _Lyanna Stark had said.

_…these people…_

"As though we ranked too far beneath a ruined girl from the barren wastelands of the north to be admitted into her presence," Cersei continued. "You should have been there. You would have laughed in her long, puffy face."

Jaime laughed now. "I don't doubt it. To witness Father being set down by a girl of 16, what a sight that would be."

"Be serious."

"You honor her, sister, by not letting a single hour pass without speaking her name. Mayhaps you think more highly of her than you realize."

Cersei scoffed.

The sound of clunking footsteps stopped what would have been a testy response to that absurdity. But it was only a servant boy garbed in brown, who was looking about him lost.

Cersei turned back to the window. "Of course everyone in the realm is talking about that slut. She wantonly ran away with the prince, sunk the realm into war, and now she benefits from it all."

Jaime laughed again. "'Wantonly ran away'? Did you not hear, sweet sister? Lady Lyanna was kidnapped and raped. The heroic Robert and the noble Ned waged war to free her from the dragon's clutches."

Cersei scoffed again, feeling the years of bitterness and rage rearing up within her. The prince was meant to be hers. Now he belonged to the worms. "If Prince Rhaegar is a raper, then King Robert is celibate as a septon."

This time, a roaring laugh erupted from her brother. "If Robert's a septon, his faithful Ned must be the most practiced and popular whore in King's Landing."

Cersei couldn't help smiling up at her golden twin as he continued going through the various lords and ladies of the realm. Her lips didn't twist downward until he reached the King's soon to return brother.

"And Lord Stannis, he is…" Jaime passed thoughtfully, his thumb running circles around her palm. "How does one describe a Stannis Baratheon?"

She had a few ideas, none of them kind.

"There's talk of marrying me to him," Cersei said. "A way to tie our House to the Baratheons without giving me what I deserve. I was always meant to be queen."

_Queen you shall be._

Yet she was continually set aside in favor of lesser women.

When King Aerys chose to saddle Prince Rhaegar with that sickly Elia Martell, Cersei's father blamed the Mad King, calling this the most insane of all his actions. But this time was different. Now he cast the blame upon Cersei. Robert had no crazed sire to marry him to a meeker woman. If anything, his foster father seemed to favor the idea of joining Houses Baratheon and Lannister, though he was not very vocal in his support.

Tywin had not spoken of his displeasure. He didn't need to. Cersei could feel the accusations of her failure every time her father's pale green eyes fell upon her.

She failed to draw the eye of a young, lustful fool away from a ruined girl who wasn't half as lovely or wealthy, a girl who had birthed a bastard at that. The task should have been simple. Yet, she failed. Robert Baratheon was not immune to Cersei's charms or beauty and would gladly have let her warm his bed. But he stubbornly refused to even consider setting Lyanna Stark aside.

With this failure, Tywin now saw her as lacking. Not good enough for the role this world has reared her for. If she wasn't a desirable marriage prospect, then what good was she to him?

"Don't tell me you're one of the many ladies of the court pinning for our warrior king," Jaime said dryly.

"Don't be a fool." Robert Baratheon was undoubtedly handsome. Much more appealing than his straight and rigid brother. But Cersei didn't crave him the way she did her golden Jaime nor the silver prince the king slew. "I merely deserve better than a second son who will not even be Lord of Storm's End. Did you hear? The youngest one is getting the Baratheon's seat and Lord Stannis will be left with dreary Dragonstone."

Jaime chuckled. "Poor Stannis."

"And it's I who am to be married to him, a man slighted by his own blood, passed over for a mere boy. Lyanna Stark and her bastard should be sent away with Stannis, not I. But no, I will be sent to Dragonstone, away from you. Meanwhile, she is rewarded for seducing the prince and then naming him a raper to bandage her ruined reputation. As if anyone but Robert Baratheon is like to believe Rhaegar Targaryen would rape anyone."

The silver prince was quiet and beautiful and eternally melancholy. She could not imagine so wistful and beloved a man forcing himself on a woman. She couldn't imagine him _needing_ to.

"Are you lost, boy?" Jaime called out.

Cersei turned to see the servant boy from earlier still slinking around the opposite end of the hall.

"I-" he started.

"Off with you!" Cersei roared. "Now."

With a slight nod of his head, he obeyed.

"The nerve of that boy."

As Jaime reassured her that their father would never waste her on a second son, her mind traveled through the conversation briefly to ensure she hadn't given away any of the few plans her father had shared with her. She hadn't, but there was little threat of that. Tywin's contempt and lack of confidence in her ensured that he shared only the barest information with her. She was still working under his previous orders to catch the king's eye and keep it. But what if he was actually planning to agree to a betrothal between her and Stannis? Then Robert may meet with an accident leading to his brother succeeding him in the throne.

But to be married to Stannis Baratheon! The thought rebelled inside Cersei leaving a bruise upon her pride almost as large as the one left by his brother's disinterest.

No, there was still time to catch Robert. He wouldn't marry for another month at least. Not until the youngest Stark boy came down from Winterfell with the northern bannermen and Lord Eddard's bride and trueborn son arrived from Riverrun. That could give her enough time to cast down this whore, ensnare the king, and prove to her father that she wasn't useless and undesirable.

As if in answer to her determination, King Robert appeared in the yard below the window, striding purposefully toward the stables. She might just catch him this very night.

* * *

"Boy!" Robert yelled as he strode into the stables. "Ready my horse!"

The groom, who was feeding an apple to a red mare, stiffened at the order and cast a glance around the empty stable. After a pause, he quickly went to the task.

It was the black of night, but all the better to match Robert's mood. He needed a hard ride to work out his frustration. This was supposed to be a blissfully happy time, a time of triumph. Yet his future queen, his beloved Lyanna- This wasn't what he was expecting.

Before, she had only ever been calm and courteous with him. For all Ned's talk of wolf blood and how wild she was, he had seen none of it. Not until their fight.

"Hurry, damn you!" he roared as the groom fumbled in the process of saddling the deep brown destrier.

At the King's outburst, the boy dropped the saddle from the horse's back.

Huffing in frustration, the boy said, "Oh shut up and wait!"

Robert's mouth dropped open. "Is that how you speak to your king?"

"Aye, if he mispleases me."

Robert was about to release the full force of his wrath upon the boy, but the lad turned to look back at him.

The king blinked. For half a moment he thought he was looking at a younger, much softer Ned. But then…

"Lady Lyanna!"

She turned around fully, a reluctant smile twitching at her features despite the obvious effort she was making to keep the willful defiance in her face. Robert's shocked gaze traveled down her body, taking in the tunic that hung loosely over the brown leather breeches, before rising again to the cloth cap that must conceal her thick brown hair.

The sight shocked the anger right out of the king.

She gave a bow. "Your Grace."

"I didn't expect to find you here, my lady," Robert said, his eyes still moving up and down her body, not entirely sure he disapproved.

"Visiting Comet," Lyanna said, gesturing toward the red mare. "Ned will send her back to Starfall soon."

"These clothes are…"

"Howland's. Usually I steal Benjen's. Do they misplease? Your Grace."

Though the words were respectful and reverent, her tone was not. The question sounded akin to a challenge.

"Misplease me? No, my lady. I'd be more mispleased if my queen didn't dress exactly as she liked."

Lyanna gave him an appraising look before turning away.

She favors horses, Robert remembered as he watched her return to the mare, leaving his saddle unsecured atop the destrier. She was a stronger rider than most men in the North, he had heard. A light and swift sand steed, that's what he would give her. Beautiful and expensive enough to make her warm to him, to make her forget all that nonsense with the bloody Lannisters.

Eyes still lingering on her clothing, particularly the exposed curve of her neck, Robert approached Lyanna and the mare, ready to ask a series of questions to see what she preferred in her horses so he would know what to look for, but they were interrupted.

"King Robert." Cersei Lannister's voice drifted over from the stable doors. Robert glanced over to see her floating gracefully inside. "I had not thought to find you here."

Robert wondered if that were true. They "happened" upon each other rather often, not that he would ever complain, comely girl that she was.

The Lannister girl had returned to King's Landing soon after the rebellion's end, immediately helping her father emphasize each of the benefits of a union between their Houses. Those benefits were not unappealing. But for all her flirtation she kept her legs locked tight, with the only key being marriage- something Robert would never agree to. But that didn't stop Robert wanting to get under those intricate skirts, just for a night or two. There was no harm in that. Just some meaningless fun.

But with Lyanna returned to his side that was out of the question, of course.

"Are you alone?" he asked. "You should find your guards, girl. It's not safe for a lady to be wandering about at night."

"Unsafe." Cersei smiled, strolling by the horses in their stalls, before stopping abruptly to fix him with a look of mock accusation. "Am I unsafe with you, Your Grace? Is my honor in peril?"

Several very inappropriate responses rose to Robert's lips, but his eyes involuntarily darted toward Lyanna. Her back faced them as she murmured to Comet, stroking her auburn neck.

"No, my lady," he responded instead. "You couldn't be safer than if you were with Baelor the Blessed."

"How disappointing." Cersei's wicked smile sent a thrill through him. "Tell me, how is your betrothed? She seemed unstrung this evening. I hope she is well, the poor thing."

Lyanna stiffened from the corner of his eye.

"She's well enough," Robert said.

"I'm glad. One can only hope such scenes won't become common. We all want our future queen to heal from everything she has been through. Speaking of, how is her dear babe? It was Rickard, was it not? Rickard Blackfyre?"

_Blackfyre_. The name of the bastard branch of House Targaryen crackled through the air forming a tightening in his chest.

Lyanna turned about, quick as a whip. "No. He is called Rickard Waters. But yes, my son is well. Thank you for your concern. I know just how deeply you Lannisters care for children."

At the sight of Lyanna, Lady Cersei's eyes grew so wide, the green orbs looked ready to plop out of their sockets. Robert couldn't have suppressed the booming laughter that erupted from his chest even if he tried. But for her part, Cersei recovered quickly.

"Lady Lyanna, I hardly recognized you dressed as a man. The clothing suits you well." She smiled sweetly. "But yes, Targaryen children, even bastard ones, are always of great interest. It gives me great joy to know your dear babe is doing well."

"I'm sure it does," Lyanna said. "What has brought you to the stables at this hour? Is there something you want or were you merely bidden to follow the King about?"

That wolf blood was out and snarling. Robert found that he rather liked to see that feral fury surging through her, so long as it wasn't focused on him. Yet Lannisters had a rage of their own. Though Lady Cersei's smile stayed frozen in place, her eyes blazed as green and fierce as wildfire.

"You will have to excuse me, Your Grace," Cersei said, tight and controlled. "As you said, the hour is late. Good evening Lady Stark. You have been through _so much_. I will pray that the gods help you heal and give you peace of mind."

After Lady Lannister departed, Robert turned to Lyanna. "Yours is the fury already, my lady," he said, chuckling.

"She wants to be your queen," Lyanna said. "I heard her and Ser Jaime talking of it."

_Ah, that's what sparked her fire._ Jealousy in his usually placid betrothed could only be pleasing.

"And I won't have her," Robert happily assured her. "I won't be having any queen but you."

She paused before taking up a brush to run through Comet's mane. "After our argument, I thought about ending our betrothal."

Out of all the times Robert had been shocked that day, this was the greatest. His throat seemed to close as several exclamations fought to burst forth from him at once only to clash with each other in a near soundless gasp.

_Call off the betrothal! What in the seven hells!_

Never, not once did Robert ever think he could lose her. Not now when everything was all sorted out into the type of story the bards were already singing about.

Lyanna didn't seem to notice his distress though.

"But that was stupid," she confessed. "It would only hurt my House and show me as ungrateful to you for all you've done." She looked over her shoulder at him to meet his gaze. "And I _am_ grateful."

They stared at each other a moment in silence before she turned away again.

"Since we are to wed, we should be honest with each other," Lyanna went on. "I have no plans to change who I am. And I won't expect you to change who you are. As you are sure to have noticed now, I like to wear breeches, not dresses. I also like to ride horses and handle a sword and a bow. And I know you have a taste for wenching."

"No!" Robert felt himself blushing like a maid as she cast a smile at him over her shoulder. _Damn it all!_ "Mayhaps I _did_ have something of a taste, but once we wed, I will be true to you. I swear it. I'll swear before the old gods and the new."

Her expression didn't change, but she didn't press either. "We can't change each other's nature. If we try, we will only hate each other."

She was giving him leave to bed who he liked so long as she could do as she liked. Robert liked that not at all.

The sight of her in men's clothing was charming. His cock twitched at the thought of taking her dressed so. But for her to speak so calmly of his wenching… He had had women with much weaker claims to his fidelity rage at him for being untrue. Yet his betrothed cared not a bit. The thought made him unhappy, so he decided not to think on it for now. It would all sort itself out. Just a moon and a half to wait until they wed, then all would be sorted.

"A bow and a sword, you say? A little thing like you?" She was so small she didn't even reach his shoulder. Dainty and delicate, that's what he always thought. He couldn't imagine her with a weapon. "Can you even lift a great sword? Or draw back a bow?"

Lyanna scoffed. "Mayhaps you can watch me in the training yard someday, Your Grace."

"Mayhaps," he agreed, giving her breeches and tunic another glance over. What other surprises would he find the longer he knew her? "Mayhaps we should have a tourney and you can show us all."

"Competing in a tourney…" She didn't sound excited at the idea. "Do you still plan to reward the Lannisters for their assistance in the war?"

Robert stiffened at both the abrupt shift in the conversation and the return of those yellow-headed shits.

"Seven hells, not that again! Come, ride with me and forget that nonsense with those golden bastards." But then he remembered the hour. "Or we can wait until the morrow when the sun's coming up over the Blackwater. There's good land outside the city walls. We can have one of the real stable lads saddle our horses and I can show you."

"Fear not, Your Grace," she said. "I merely wanted to suggest the type of reward those golden bastards received. I thought it might please Lord Tywin if you were to release his son from his vows to serve as a member of the Kingsguard. A man like him would see that as a great reward, I should think. That way he need not worry about passing his lands and titles on to a daughter or a dwarf."

"Ah, there's an idea."

That along with the offer of Stannis' hand to Lady Cersei might be enough to satisfy the old man.

"And you need not worry about ruling the realm with a kingslayer at your back," she said. "But yes, I would like to ride. Gods, I need to feel the wind in my face again and this poor girl hasn't been able to stretch her legs since she was saddled with a recovering invalid like me. Isn't that right, Comet? You want to run and run as fast as you can too, don't you, love?"

Their ride the next morning reaffirmed his determination to buy her a new sand steed.

The darkness that clouded her once expressive features since her return cleared while they passed through the city gates. She looked free and unfettered, even as she charged ahead of him at full gallop and disappeared through the trees. As he urged his destrier harder, Robert could catch sight of a wisp of her hair every so often or hear the echo of her laughter. He felt as though he chased after some mystical creature of legend that remained just outside his grasp.

Gods it had been so long since he heard her really, truly laugh. Not since they parted after the Harrenhal tourney when he returned to the Vale with Ned and she went North with Brandon. The sound lifted Robert's heart.

When he finally caught up to her on the shore across from the capital, she was still smiling. Robert was so glad, he didn't even mind it when she brought up the Lannisters again, or when she suggested taking the heads of that House's two bannermen who killed the Targaryen children. He would look even more a hero if he brought about justice for the family of an enemy, she reasoned.

Everything was already sorting itself out, Robert decided.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

The moment the arrow struck the target a few spaces away from the center, the indulgent and amused smile drained away from Robert's face.

Lyanna noted the shift with satisfaction. Like the other men and boys in the training yard, her betrothed was shocked at the sight of a woman who knew how to string a bow, let alone use one. The others were also taken aback by the breeches adorning their future queen. Robert didn't seem to mind them, unlike her father, so Lyanna continued to wear them, relishing in freedom from clumsy, swishing skirts that only tangled around her legs when she wanted to run or ride.

"I'm out of practice," she explained, taking up another arrow and drawing the bow.

As she loosed the shaft, Lyanna was sure it would strike the center. Years of practice and her own natural ability made that a certainty in her mind. But it was not to be. Like the other, the arrow landed a few spaces from the center, but on the opposite side. With a low huff, Lyanna took up another arrow. That one landed even farther from the mark.

"Damn."

She loosed three more with only worsening results and rising frustration. The last soared beyond the target all together.

A murmur of chuckles buzzed through the men in the yard.

Chest heaving, Lyanna turned to say something cutting, but Robert silenced them first.

"Shut up, the lot of you!" he roared.

A bustling clamor followed where the others all found something to do besides watching their queen-to-be struggle.

Robert marched toward Lyanna, determined. "Here, girl, like this."

Lyanna stiffened as he stepped into her space and put his hands on her.

_I'm not afraid,_ she thought, again and again, secretly wondering if she would ever be comfortable with him or any man touching her, even innocently. _I am a she-wolf of Winterfell. Memories do not scare me_.

Robert purposefully put her back into an aiming stance, his large hands smoothing out her shoulders so she didn't slouch. She took up the position he guided her into, forcing herself not to think of how much larger than her he was. It was just Robert. Just Ned's friend. Just her betrothed. The icy fear crawling up her veins at his touch was mere silliness.

"Just like this," he said. "You had the right of it at first. Then you let your frustration get the better of you. Never do that. Your frustration, your anger, your fear, your rage, they don't wield you. You wield them. Use them to crush your enemies. They're like weapons that way. Now rein them in and wield them."

For once, she knew the king had the right of it. A long, cleansing breath helped wrangle in her irritation as well as that irrational fear. Once Lyanna trusted herself, she released the string and watched the arrow pierce the target right beside the very first one she loosed that morning.

"Ah-ha! There's a good lass." Robert clapped her on the shoulder. "Even closer than before."

"Aye, better," Lyanna conceded. She took up yet another arrow. "But the center is where I'm aiming."

She followed his advice, and calmed herself until all the emotions were reined in under her control. Then she arched her arm back and let fly.

The elusive target was conquered.

Robert brought his hands together in booming applause. More hands, lighter hands joined in. Lyanna turned to see who it was, expecting to see a few of the other men in yard clapping. But no, the sound came from above. Three closely spaced windows on the floor above gave a group of ladies an ample view of the men practicing in the yard. Among the smiling, silk draped onlookers were Melessa and Selyse Florent, Janna Tyrell, Mina Redwyne, and a few others Lyanna couldn't put names to.

"Oh! Lady Stark." Melessa Florent gaped when she caught Lyanna's eye, before smiling sweetly. "I did not recognize you. What a great bowma- _bowwoman_ you are."

Lyanna thanked her and ignored the exchange of raised eyebrows that passed along the group.

Seeing the way the women – girls, really – giggled and cheered and whispered behind their hands summoned memories from a thousand years ago in Winterfell. Servant girls and daughters of visiting bannermen would always watch the men and boys training in the yard. Brandon always kept their eyes tethered to him as he parried and disarmed his opponents. But he never bothered glancing up. Why should he? He knew they paid attention to every move he made and every bead of sweat dripping from his brow.

Her throat thickened, threatening to suffocate her as she remembered the way the two of them would jape about his missing harem while he taught her swordplay in the godswood.

It took more than a few steadying breathes to push those feelings down. But rein them in, she did. Then Lyanna stretched back her arm for the next go and shot those emotions out of her. The arrow struck the target so hard, the shaft thrummed violently.

Somehow, that felt good.

Lyanna turned to her betrothed, ready to ask after his now legendary warhammer. She had never once seen him wield it and wondered how one went about training with so powerful a weapon without harming his partner.

But Robert's attention was already claimed by the ladies above and the ample teats some of them managed to display while leaning against the sills. Janna Tyrell made a particularly pleasing picture as she called out words of encouragement to her cousins in the yard while leaning forward, nearly spilling out of her bodice. Lyanna wondered if it was intentional. Mace Tyrell's sister seemed so sweet and genuinely innocent.

"I can't tell who has the better view," Lyanna said.

Startled, Robert turned back to her, sputtering. "I-I was merely-"

"The men or the ladies," she continued, smirking at the guilt on his face. _I care not a jot if he lays with each one of those buzzing hens,_ Lyanna told herself. She meant what she said a few nights ago in the stables. She had no reason to care who he fancied. It wasn't as though she loved him. "Or who parades themselves harder. Ser Mandon Moore wasn't nearly so brutal with that practice sword before the women arrived. That poor squire is getting the brunt of it."

They watched, snickering, as another young knight, Ser Glibert, hacked away at his sparring partner, all the while casting glances up at the ladies. The snickering turned to full laughter as the newly minted knight failed to notice he had knocked his opponent down, yet continued to swing at air for a brief moment.

"There, you see," Robert said through chuckles. "That's what happens when your emotions hold the reins during a fight. It's a good laugh when you're playing, but there's nothing to jape about in a real battle. Too many of those prancing peacocks who liked to run at each other with sticks shit themselves when they found out war wasn't just some bloody tourney. Some of them found out too late. But that just wheedled it down to those of us strong enough to keep our heads with all the blood and screaming and hacking."

Lyanna watched his face, mesmerized by the grim longing she found there as he stared off beyond her. "Do you miss it, the war?"

He didn't answer right away. He actually seemed contemplative.

"Those were good days," he said, his deep blue eyes still far anywhere. "Gods, those were good days. Everything was simple and easy. You killed or you were killed. There wasn't any of this balancing of wants and tiptoeing about."

Lyanna laughed. She couldn't imagine him tiptoeing anywhere. "You're king. Who do you have to tiptoe around?"

Robert scoffed. "Jon would have me scraping and by-your-leaving to Lannister. The man's too careful. He doesn't want me making an enemy of the great Lord Tywin. Thinks it will insult him if I dismiss his son from the Kingsguard and punish his bannermen for following his orders."

Lyanna let the bow drop to her side as she turned to face him fully. "Jon? Jon Arryn? He would stop you from punishing baby killers and rapers? He is Hand of the King, not the King himself. How can he have you do or not do anything?"

From all Eddard had told her of his foster father, he seemed to be an honorable man. _Higher Than Honor_. Those were the Arryn words that Ned had taken for truth. He would want justice, not argue against it. Was this Robert's way of wriggling free of his promises?

"Eh, it's an old habit the old man will never tire of no matter how many crowns they stick on my head," he said. "But to the seven hells with what he or Tywin Lannister want. I promised you Clegane and Lorch's heads and by the Seven you will have them."

By the next moon's turn, Clegane and Lorch's heads still remained attached to their bodies as they stayed safely in the west, but at least the Kingslayer (as they now called the golden lordling) had been stripped of his white cloak.

Jaime Lannister's dismissal was a well-attended event that – at the urging of Lord Jon – was treated as a reward and a restoration of justice. The Mad King had claimed his oath in order to rob Lord Tywin of his rightful heir as a punishment. By taking back the white cloak from Ser Jaime, Robert was to be seen as setting everything right again.

The sight of triumph in Lord Tywin's green eyes set Lyanna's chest to burning with rage. But she said nothing, instead choosing to think only on the good things. And those were plentiful.

Robert stopped watching her at a distance and seemed to realize she was a real person. He even arranged for new clothes to be fitted for her. Breeches and tunics designed for a woman, in addition to dresses and her wedding gown.

The land around the capital was quite fine for riding, which she did quite often with Ned, Robert, and Howland, and sometimes on her own with a few guards to out ride.

Rickard was growing and learning, looking so much like his grandfather and uncle that looking at him made her both smile and ache.

Benjen would soon arrive with Eddard's Tully bride and his trueborn son. With their arrival, what was left of House Stark would finally be reunited.

Those were all more than enough to create happiness and Lyanna clung to them as the weeks passed.

* * *

Lyanna and Eddard were playing with their sons in her solar when the news of Ashara Dayne's death reached them.

While the siblings piled the blocks into a structure, Ned's boy gummed the edge of a square and Lyanna's son watched their progress intently before knocking down each toy building they constructed with a giggle. Rickard was the larger of the two babes, but Jon already had the glimpses of a first tooth.

The boys would soon have another playmate in the form of Ned's trueborn son, Robb, who was set to arrive with Benjen and Catelyn Tully in a few short days. Lyanna's heart ached with need to see Ben again. She planned to throw her arms around her fool brother and squeeze until she heard the cracking of bones.

With Catelyn Tully, Lyanna was much less certain how to anticipate her arrival. She barely knew her good sister other than the fact that she had been Brandon's betrothed and was now Eddard's wife. But her experience with ladies in general was not marked with friendliness.

The ladies at court were quite insulted whenever she brought Rickard and Jon into their midst when they called upon her or she upon them. It was quite amusing to see them silently fuming through smiles and courtesies. Lady Cersei was the worst of them in part because of Lyanna's freshly sprouted hatred for the lioness after the night she overhead the Lannister girl talking with her brother of Lyanna entrapping the poor, poor dragon prince and lying about what happened afterward.

If they were men, Lyanna would have fought her in single combat and tore Cersei's insides out.

But they were women, so they drank tea instead. Lady Cersei would smile sweetly with the rest, calling Rickard "little dove" before exchanging smug glances with the other women. Lyanna would sip the hot liquid, doing everything in her power not to throw the tea in Cersei' lovely face.

And that was Lyanna's experience with southron women. She would pray in the godswood that Lady Catelyn was different. But sourthron or northern, very few women were like to accept their husband's bastard into their home. Lyanna could only imagine her good sister would be furious to find out about Ned's plans to bring his son home to Winterfell.

"What will you do when she demands you send him away?" Lyanna asked Ned as they continued playing with the boys.

"Jon has my blood, Stark blood," he said. "He belongs in Winterfell."

"Your bride won't agree."

"I will bring my son home," he stubbornly insisted. "I have a duty to him and I made a promise. Lady Catelyn will see the justice in a man finding a place in his home for his son."

Rickard laughed, shoving down the latest tower they constructed. Lyanna picked up a block to begin again.

"Dear Ned. You think just because you know treating Jon as equal to your trueborn child is only right that others will think the same. Lady Catelyn won't. She will see it as an insult against herself and against the trueborn son she gave you. You should foster Jon here with me and Rickard."

Their little Stark boys seemed almost like twins, so close in age and appearance were they. The pair could be happy growing up together. As bastards, they would be outcasts no matter where they grew up. But at least in King's Landing they would have each other, so they wouldn't feel so alone. And as the queen's kin, they were less likely to meet with open disdain from those around them. Hidden disdain, yes. But not open.

"No, they both belong in Winterfell," Ned said. "They will be shunned if they stay here."

"They will _not_," Lyanna insisted.

The hasty arrival of Howland Reed interrupted the argument. The little crannogman's face was grim as he shared the gossip making its way around the Red Keep.

Ashara Dayne was dead. She threw herself into the Summer Sea from a tower high up at the tip of Starfall.

The announcement was so abrupt that a long silence trailed after.

Lyanna's eyes darted from Ned to Jon and back, not knowing what to say.

Ned's gaze stayed fixed on his son. The babe continued soothing his gums with the edge of the block, oblivious to the news.

Lyanna tried to remember what little she knew of Lady Ashara, but everything was so sparse and thin. Beautiful and lively. A sparkling contrast to her quiet, shy brother. That is how she was at Harrenhal.

The next time Lyanna saw her, she was much changed. During the months Ned and Lyanna stayed at Starfall, her path rarely crossed the lady of the castle. Lady Ashara was kind enough to provide them with accommodations while the siblings healed – Ned from battle, Lyanna from a difficult birthing – but they rarely shared meals or saw her at all. She mourned her brother and her friend. She despaired for Jon, who she knew her father and living brother would despise for being the son of the man who killed Ser Arthur.

Finally, Ned found his voice. "Are you … is it for certain?"

"As certain as gossip can be in this snake pit," Howland said. "I am sorry, my friend."

Each of the proper platitudes that came to Lyanna's mind seemed hollow and meaningless. Knowing nothing she could say would matter, she wrapped an arm around Eddard's shoulders and pressed a hand against Jon's cheek. She wished there was something she could do, something to set everything to rights. But there was nothing.

Lyanna suddenly hated the Tullys. All of them. If it wasn't for them, this wouldn't have happened. If they hadn't forced Ned to take Lady Catelyn to wife before joining the rebellion, Ned would have married Lady Ashara as he planned. Jon would be trueborn, not a bastard.

But even at the height of her fury, Lyanna knew that was unjust. The true fault lay with the Targaryens and herself. She made it all happen because she just had to play at being a man. If she hadn't started all of this by donning shoddy, mismatched armor, the whole world would be different.

* * *

Being king was harder than winning the damn crown, Robert realized as he saw with his freshly assembled small council. Everyone wanted something and it was always different from what everyone else wanted.

Ser Barristan got his wish with the dismissal of the Kingslayer. But the greedy old bastard still wasn't satisfied. He wanted to make the golden knight to take the black. But Jon wouldn't have that. No. They could not offend Tywin Lannister and risk another way by banishing the man's whelp to the wall. They could be on their way to war as it was with the Martells, who wanted justice for the princess and her children.

And what in the seven hells did Lannister want? His bloody daughter as queen! As if Robert hadn't fought a war to get his own betrothed back. As if he would cast her aside. Jon didn't seem nearly as appalled as he should have when the suggestion was made by the old man. But he did propose an alternative. Stannis could wed Lady Cersei, thus joining Houses Baratheon and Lannister.

But no. Tywin Bloody Lannister was taking his sweet bloody time "considering" the offer.

And Stannis – the Others take him! – refused outright!

"I will not wed a woman who is blood kin to traitors, kingslayers, and child killers," Stannis informed the council as soon as he returned to King's Landing after his failure at Dragonstone.

"And why is that?" Robert demanded. "_You_ are kin to a traitor. Seven hells! You _are_ a traitor. Or did you forget that time we raised our banners against the crown? What do you think I would have done if I found Targaryen sitting the Iron Throne when I reached the Red Keep? If it wasn't Jaime Lannister they called Kingslayer, it would've been me. My hammer would've gone straight through is chest and out the other side."

"You were not a member of the Kingsguard."

"No, I was only one of his bannermen."

Robert took a swig from his wine sack while Jon continued to press the advantages of the Lannisters and all the gold they liked shitting. Ser Barristan threw his weight behind Stannis. Varys simpered. Pycelle talked too slowly for Robert to bother paying attention.

They all wanted something different and Robert wanted none of it.

Looking at the stream of sunlight pouring through the windows looked so inviting. Gods how he longed to get out of that room. Mayhaps he would take Ned hunting in the Kingswood to help get his mind off the guilt he felt over his Dornish girl.

But that was if he ever got out of here. The small council still argued.

"If he doesn't want the Lannister girl then he won't have her," said the young king.

"Robert-" Jon started only to be cut off by Stannis.

"Good," his brother said. "Let us move on to Ser Gregor and Ser Amo-"

"If you don't want a traitor's get," Robert said, "why not the sister of one of the most loyal men we know. Mace Tyrell has been prancing his comely sister about more shamelessly than Lannister has been with his daughter. Lady Janna Tyrell is her name. What say you, Stannis? You saw for yourself how loyal and steadfast her family was during the war. You can have her, your honor, and those teats of hers. Ah, and Mace as a good brother."

Stannis looked ready to strike him. Robert laughed. If only he would do it, then these council meetings might finally get interesting.

"I will not-"

Robert cut him off with a wave of his hand, taking another drink of wine. "You can choose between them later. You wanted to move on to Ser Gregor and Amory Lorch? You want them executed, don't you?"

"They should stand trial and face justice," Stannis said, holding his gaze, already bristling for another fight.

Robert debated giving him one, before deciding against it. Toying with his little brother had lengthened the meeting enough as it was.

"Good. So do I."

Jon said nothing. His arguments against this had already been made and discarded several times before.

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat. "If I may, Your Grace, Clegane and Lorch are both loyal bannermen to House Lannister."

"The Lannisters should stand trial and meet the headsman as well," Stannis said.

"This is about Lorch and Clegane, not the bloody Lannisters," Robert said.

"Lord Tywin will not stand for his bannermen to be treated as criminals for following his orders," Pyrcelle insisted.

Robert only pushed this point for Lyanna.

If every soldier who raped and murdered innocents during the war was executed, the walls of King's Landing would be overflowing with heads. The only thing making Clegane and Lorch different was the birth and breeding of their victims. If they'd killed a tavern wench and her get, few would take it amiss. But Elia was a princess and the daughter of a high lord. Her babes were dragonspawn, descended from kings. That shouldn't happen to them.

But Robert's way of thinking was why punish two if he weren't going to punish all?

Well for Lyanna he would.

But what made him suddenly angry and determined, what made him put down his wine sack and stare down the old man with eyes that brewed like a coming storm were the words "Lord Tywin will not stand for…" Oh, Robert had had more than his fill of catering to the Lord of Casterly Rock.

Jon must have seen the rage rising within him because his foster father's hand fell upon his arm. "Robert, do not-"

But it was too late for that.

"Won't stand for it? He won't stand for it, will he? The Others take Tywin Lannister! I am king, not that yellow haired shit who spent most of the war hiding under his Rock. He'll stand for exactly what I say he will."

"Your Grace, I only meant-"

"I will have the heads of his bannermen," Robert said. "And his daughter won't be having my brother." He rose and stared at each of the councilors. Only Stannis wasn't looking away. "This meeting is over."

Robert charged out, finding himself longing to see what the mighty Lord Tywin would do.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

The journey from Riverrun to King's Landing was a long one. The large wheelhouse swayed and bumped the Tully sisters down the Kingsroad at a crawling pace that made both Robb and Lysa cross and irritable. While Catelyn would soothe the normally well-tempered babe, her sister would grow more and more sullen as she watched them together.

"Cheer yourself, sister," Catelyn said. "Ser Robin told me we will make King's Landing by midday. You will be with Lord Jon and will soon carry a babe of your own."

Lysa twisted her mouth as she gave Robb a quick glance.

After their husbands and father left for war, both sisters knew themselves to be with child. But while Catelyn's belly swelled, Lysa only received moonblood. The disappointment must have been sharp, particularly because her new husband was gone and might never return. But now that all was well and they were soon to be returned to Lord Arryn and Lord Eddard, respectively, Lysa only became more and more irritated as they jostled along.

"Do you think Lord Jon would find a place for Petyr in King's Landing if I asked?" Lysa's hands twisted within themselves. "Petyr is frightful clever. He would do so well no matter what position he was given. As Hand of the King, Lord Jon can do as he likes. And Petyr doesn't deserve to rot away all alone on the Fingers."

Catelyn refused to allow her cheeks to redden at the mention of their father's former ward. She refused to think of the last time she saw him or the unread letter he sent.

"If you ask him, I am certain Lord Jon will do what's best," she said.

That didn't seem to appease her little sister who said nothing more during the remainder of the journey.

Septa Melyse, who rode with them, insisted on taking charge of Robb as they neared the city lest Catelyn risk greeting her husband with drool and vomit drenching her bodice.

Their husbands were waiting to meet them just outside the city. Lord Hoster Tully, who had ridden at the head of the column, greeted his good sons warmly. He knew them, fought beside them for a time. But when the pair of husbands and wives turned to each other a chill blew among them.

"My lord."Catelyn nodded to Eddard Stark in greeting.

"My lady." He kissed her hand before dutifully asking after her health and the journey. His grey eyes seemed to look through her as he nodded at her replies.

_He is still mourning,_ Catelyn thought. _Lord Eddard has exerted himself out of duty he owes me, but the deaths of his father and brother are still an untended wound. And who can blame him?_

Catelyn's eyes stung like the piercing of a hundred needles whenever she allowed herself to think of Brandon. Her husband's grief and his strength in surmounting that only made Catelyn admire her new husband.

"My lord, allow me to introduce you to your son and heir, Robb." From the wheelhouse, Septa Melyse gingerly handed the babe to Catelyn.

For the first time, a true smile spread across Lord Eddard's face.

"The boy, he has your look," he said, gently placing a large hand over the side of Robb's face, brushing the stray auburn hair off his forehead.

She nodded. "Aye, the Tully look."

After greeting Benjen and Edmure, as well as some of the other bannermen of the north and the Riverlands who traveled with their part for the wedding and coronation, Lord Eddard and Lord Jon led the column through the city alongside Hoster Tully.

Back in the wheelhouse, Catelyn realized she had forgotten to ask after her good sister. She could only imagine the state Lady Lyanna must be in after all she had been through. Septa Melyse had never taught her the best words to say to a woman who endured rape and imprisonment. Instinctively she turned to ask the older woman what pleasantries would be best. But seeing the septa tending her own child, Catelyn realized it was time she decided for herself what was proper and what was not.

"He hates me," Lysa said, plump tears spilling from her eyes. "You saw how he was. He hates me for not giving him a child as you gave your husband."

"Lord Jon does not hate you," Catelyn said. "I know this is-"

"How can you know anything of this? Your husband greeted you with warmth and affection. Mine was nothing but stiff courtesy. He does not want me. Father paid him with swords and soldiers to make him take me. He never wanted me. Not when we wed and not now when he no longer has need of those swords and soldiers."

There was truth there. Their husbands wed them for their father's alliance. But that was the way of such matters. Marriage contracts bound Houses together with blood, dowries, and alliances. Such arrangements were for the benefit of all. How could Lysa be silly enough to this would be any different? Affection, and mayhaps even love, would come later.

When Catelyn explained that, her sister only wept all the harder.

"Of course you benefit," she said. "That is always the way, isn't it? Catelyn gets a young husband and a beautiful baby and Lysa gets a disgusting old man with missing teeth."

"Do not say such things of your lord husband," Septa Melyse said.

Lysa rounded on the old septa. "I am a woman grown! I will say what I like!"

There was no way to bring comfort to her sister now, Catelyn realized. But she would still speak sense to her.

"Stop this crying and wipe away these tears. This city is your home now. You do not want everyone you pass in the castle to see you sobbing like a child. Think of what they will say of you. Exert yourself, sister."

With one last sniffle, Lysa attempted to do as she was bid. By the time the wheelhouse shuffled its way through the gates of the Red Keep, her sister no longer wept, though her eyes remained a bloody crimson.

As Lord Eddard led her to their chambers, Catelyn pushed the worries about her sister from her thoughts and focused instead on her own lord husband, making sure to remember to ask after his own poor sister as soon as they were alone. She thought about what Brandon had said of the Lady Lyanna, how wild and spirited she was, how he secretly helped her train with sword and bow and lance without their father knowing. Catelyn could only imagine the lady must be much more subdued after everything she suffered.

"As soon as I wash and change out of my traveling gown, I will call upon Lady Lyanna," Catelyn said as they settled into their chambers.

Lord Eddard awkwardly closed the door behind the servants who had carried her trunks in.

"My lady, I must-" He stopped to consider his words.

For a beat, Catelyn's stomach stilled as she wondered if he wished to claim his husbandly rights already.

Lord Eddard lifted his chin and held her gaze. "I must tell you that I have a son. A son besides Robb."

_A bastard_. Catelyn merely stared at him reminding herself that this was to be expected. Men begot bastards, especially men at war who were leagues away from their wives. But she wondered what reply to make. Should she thank him for his honesty?

"I have dishonored you and for that I must beg your forgiveness," he said. "I never wished to insult you."

"I am not the first wife to be insulted in this way, nor the last," she said, hoping that would end the discussion.

He placed a hand on her arm as she turned away. "You must also know that I intend to raise him."

"You mean to foster him with one of your bannermen?"

"I mean to raise him at Winterfell."

Catelyn turned back to face him completely. "You want to raise a bastard alongside our trueborn children?" As though some bastard were equal to her Robb! "You ask forgiveness for dishonoring me right before you insult me again."

"Jon is my blood." Lord Eddard's cold eyes tuned to steel. "I have a duty to him just as I have a duty to you and Robb."

"Then foster him with a trusted friend or send him back to his mother with a respectable amount of gold," she said. "Arrange for an apprenticeship for him in some honorable trade. But gods above, do not ask me to raise another woman's child."

For the first time, Lord Eddard looked angry. He was silent a moment before saying in a tone that brokered no argument, "Jon is coming home to Winterfell."

* * *

By the time Catelyn washed and slipped into a fresh gown, the anger had dimmed. She still had no desire to see the bastard boy raised alongside her own trueborn children, but she was certain Lord Eddard would soon see reason. Honor and duty were guiding him. Honor and duty would put him on the right path. He would be doing the boy no favor raising him for a life he could have no part of. Soon, he would see that.

Just as Catelyn was about to set out with Robb to call upon Lady Lyanna, Lysa rushed into her solar.

"Oh, my poor sister, I have just heard something ghastly from Lady Melessa." Excitement shined from her blue eyes for the first time since they left Riverrun. "Your Ned has brought his bastard son to court."

A few heartbeats of silence passed between them.

"Yes, Lord Eddard told me," Catelyn said, stiffly.

"To think, flaunting his bastard around for the whole realm to see! My poor sweet sister, he must have no regard for you at all."

"I am to call upon Lady Lyanna, you should come along," Catelyn said.

"Oh, yes!" Lysa cried as they left the solar. "I long to see her. Lady Melessa told me she is quite a spectacle. She dresses as a man, and trains with both sword and bow in the yard. The king even had a sword forged for her that she wears. And I hear she's affectionate with both bastards, even though hers was made from rape. The rumor is-"

"Is there anything Lady Melessa didn't share with you?" Catelyn asked, adjusting Robb from one hip to the other. "Lyanna Stark is our good sister and will soon be our queen. We should not gossip about her."

Chastised, Lysa walked the rest of the way in silence.

Within Lady Lyanna's solar, the sisters found the lady with Benjen, Edmure, and two very Stark-looking babes. While her good sister greeted her with a dutiful courtesy that matched Ned's, she balanced one of the babes on her right hip while a sheathed sword hung from her left. Lysa tugged lightly at Catelyn's sleeve and gave her a look of excited amusement when she turned her way.

Lady Lyanna seemed to notice the exchange. Her gray gaze froze over as she regarded them.

"Has Ned told you of Jon?" she asked.

"He did," Catelyn said.

"Well, now you can meet your good son. This is Jon Snow, the future Sword of the Morning." Lady Lyanna turned to the boy in her arms. "Jon, this is your good mother, Lady Catelyn."

Catelyn did not respond at first. Lyanna was openly mocking her … or did she truly expect her to take to this child? She nodded at the boy and then to the other one in Benjen's arms, called Rickard. Catelyn shifted her own babe from one hip to the other.

_Gods he's getting big._

"Lady Lyanna, allow me to introduce you to your nephew, Robb," she said.

"The future Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North," Lysa added.

Their good sister smiled down at the auburn haired babe with true affection and squeezed his chubby little hand. "Well met, Robb. May I hold him?"

Catelyn gave her assent. Lyanna turned to hand the bastard over to Benjen, but his arms were already full of the other one.

"Let us switch," she said, pushing Jon into Catelyn without warning and taking Robb. "There we are. He's a beautiful boy. He has your look."

_And not a bit of his father's,_ Catelyn thought. She held Jon awkwardly, finally taking the opportunity to examine the boy more closely. He was smaller than Robb and he looked astonishingly like Eddard. The hair, the eyes, the shape of his long face. _Eddard saved all of himself for this one._

She looked away. "Thank you, my lady."

* * *

Throughout the week leading up to the wedding and coronation Catelyn had more than enough opportunities to see the bastards. As Lysa warned, Lyanna was very affectionate with them and kept them with her when she wasn't in the training yard or riding outside the city. While Jon was the one that hurt her pride and made her fear for Robb's future inheritance, the sight of Rickard clawed across her heart.

Lyanna's bastard looked like Brandon. The shape of his eyes, the way they crinkled when he laughed, his stubborn expression when he refused to relinquish a toy – it was all Brandon Stark. Not a touch of the dragon seemed to reside in him.

That was most likely the reason why the King not only allowed him to stay, but also seemed to adore him. Catelyn was astonished the first time she witnessed Robert entering Lyanna's solar and greeting the boys with gruff playfulness. They had both squirmed happily at the sight of him, suggesting he must play with them often. Lady Lyanna always smiled to see them together, but sometimes it was with a melancholy look.

The Starks and King Robert doted on Robb as well, but they treated him as though he were equal to the two baseborn babes. Sometimes less than that, in Catelyn's mind. Those boys might be named Snow and Waters, but they looked as Stark as Robb looked Tully, and they carried the first names of beloved family members. Their very existence made Robb look to be an outsider.

Catelyn's aversion to the bastards only served to further strain her relationships with her husband and good sister.

Ned pointedly refused to change his mind and did not even wish to tell her the name of the boy's mother. But every person, high and low, in the Red keep was well acquainted with Catelyn's shame. Ashara Dayne, the ladies said, before relating a story of tragic love ending with a bastard and a suicide.

When she questioned Ned about this, his guilt turned to fury. "Who told you of her? I will have their names.

Duty bound her to obey, but it all seemed so ludicrous.

"Would you have me name every person living in the castle?" she asked.

"The Others take this Red Keep," he swore darkly.

He must have loved this Ashara Dayne fiercely to be so defensive of her reputation even after her death.

Lady Lyanna was much worse. Where Ned seemed ashamed and guilty for putting her through this, his sister seemed quite put out at Catelyn's refusal to bond with the bastard. But she and her good sister didn't seem to agree on much of anything.

The future queen incited a great deal of gossip for openly flaunting her bastard child, the breeches she wore, riding about so often, wearing a sword, and near about everything she did.

Catelyn wanted to make things easier for Lyanna, so she would make suggestions to help her. But they were never taken.

"You look very pretty in this gown," she had said the night King Robert feasted the northern and river lords to welcome them. Her good sister had changed out of the breeches she wore earlier in the day and donned a simple yet lovely grey dress. "Mayhaps you should wear such gowns more often."

Lady Lyanna gave her a polite smile. "I wear gowns when the situation requires."

A few more hints only met with icy glares.

When Catelyn suggested she spend more time sewing with her and the other ladies and less time in the training yard, that too was met with a cold wall of silence.

Even when she told her all the ladies of court were talking about her and that she should be setting an example for them to follow, not serving as a joke, that had only made matters worse. Lyanna suddenly became unavailable to drink tea with any lady who wasn't of the North, excepting Catelyn and Lysa only because they were family.

The last time Catelyn attempted to advise her was the afternoon she came storming into Lyanna's solar, hands quaking with rage.

"You seem upset," her good sister observed. "What have I done now?"

She stood for the final fitting of her wedding gown, the seamstress twitching the fabric and cocking her head to examine it.

Catelyn nodded significantly at the seamstress before taking a seat to watch their progress. Lady Lyanna looked exceptionally lovely dressed all in ivory samite and cloth-of-silver. But the fabric sagged about her waist.

"You have lost more weight, my lady," the seamstress complained. "I will have to take it in again, but I will make certain it is ready in time for the ceremony."

The wedding was in two days, yet Lyanna didn't look near as giddy as most brides, but she did look just as nervous.

Next, she slipped into the cloth-of-gold and black gown that could only be for the coronation. That one had the same problem as the first, though the gown still complimented her coloring very nicely. It was such a shame she chose to hide her beauty behind plainer dresses and men's clothing.

"After I finish with these, we should refit your other gowns as well, my lady," the seamstress said as she departed.

Once they were finally alone and Lyanna had donned a plain pair of breeches and tunic, Catelyn told her of the gossip some of the women were saying. She and Lysa had been sitting with Ladys Melessa, Selyse, Mina, Janna, Cersei, and a few women from the Westerland, when they began talking of the summer snows that unexpectedly fell the previous day. A few of them had noticed Benjen, Lyanna, and Edmure letting Rickard and Jon discover their first snow.

"The way Lady Lyanna is so playful with him, I nearly forget he is baseborn," Janna said, holding up her embroidery to examine the neat stitches.

"If it were me, I wouldn't be able to bear looking at the bastard, let alone play with him," Mina Redwyne said. "Wouldn't he be a reminder of how he was begotten?"

Cersei laughed. "Mayhaps she doesn't find those reminders too unpleasant. Not many women would turn Prince Rhaegar from their bed."

That was when Catelyn had looked up from her own sewing. "What are you suggesting, Lady Lannister?"

Cersei turned those green eyes upon her and smiled like she was looking upon a simpleton. "How many women are like to carry about proof of their violation for everyone to see? Is it not obvious? She ran away with the prince to become his whore. Now all she has to remember him is his bastard and this red castle."

Catelyn could say nothing as a flurry of agreements rose up the women from the Westerlands.

Janna and Mina looked at her and then at each other before silently returning to their embroidery with a newfound fixation.

But the others continued.

"And how could the prince have forced himself on her?" another woman said. "She looks and fights like a man herself."

Even Lysa joined in, eagerly. "I-I would never let a raper's seed sprout in me, let alone nourish it. No woman would."

"If all women could control such things, there would be half as many bastards in the Westeroes, wouldn't there?" Catelyn said. "Lysa, Lady Lyanna deserves your respect. She is your good sister." She turned to the others. "She is your queen."

Cersei gave another of her laughs. "Is she? Did I sleep through the wedding and coronation?"

Catelyn had risen then and left without as much as a by-your-leave.

She gave Lyanna much briefer summary of this, not getting too specific with names, particularly Lysa's. Her good sister listened silently, her mouth tightening like a bow string.

When Catelyn had finished, she said nothing at first.

"What do you suggest I do?" Lyanna finally asked. "Take them each by the hand and reassure them that they can ease their minds with the knowledge that I was kidnapped and thoroughly raped? Will that make them feel better and keep my son's name out of their mouths?"

Catelyn could feel her face turning to flame. Knowing that her cheeks must be near as red as her hair, she simply said, "No."

Truthfully, she didn't know what exactly she wanted. Catelyn only knew Lyanna should be told of it.

Lyanna took a deep breath and blew the air out in a gush.

"I envy you," she said suddenly. "You'll go home to Winterfell soon and I will stay here, far from home with these venomous snakes."

Catelyn ached for her home too, knowing she would rarely visit Riverrun in the years to come. "King's Landing will be your home now, just as Winterfell will be mine."

Lyanna smiled at her sadly, then looked away. "I think I actually like you," she said. "You tell me what you think. Even though I rarely like what you think, it's better than being smiled at to my face and japed about behind my back."

"I suppose that's a compliment," Catelyn said.

Lyanna smiled. "Aye, it is."

The next day Catelyn received an invitation from her good sister to riding with her. Usually she went out alone, but, as Lyanna japingly said while they and their guards set out, "We should spend some time together that doesn't include you chastising me."

"You make me sound like a septa," Catelyn said.

"I never had a septa, so I have none to compare you to," Lyanna said carelessly.

Catelyn tried not to grimace as she remembered that the Starks, like all northerners, kept to the Old Gods instead of the Seven. That was just one more concern she would have surpass in the near future.

Traveling through the crowded city was a slow process with the combination of four Stark guards and five Tully ones. It seemed as though half the realm had crowded into the capital for the wedding and coronation, making it difficult to move more than a few feet at a time.

Once through the gate and free of the crowd, Lyanna bolted ahead into freedom. Her guards kicked their heels to keep up with their lady. Catelyn tried to do the same, but she was merely a passable horsewoman. When they were a fair distance away from the city, Lyanna stopped until Catelyn caught up. Then they road on together at a slower pace, the guards short distance behind them. They attempted to make conversation, but they had so few interests in common that it was difficult to keep a dialogue running for more than a couple moments.

"You must be happy the wedding has almost arrived," Catelyn said, hoping this topic would breed fruit.

"Aye, I am."

When she realized her good sister would offer no more response than that, Catelyn continued. "You will look lovely in those gowns once the seamstress sets them to rights. Hopefully the wedding gown will survive the bedding ceremony. Mine didn't. Jory Cassel ripped it right off of me."

She glanced over at Lyanna to see her staring determinedly ahead.

"Are you nervous about going through the bedding ceremony?" she asked.

"No," Lyanna said, quickly.

_She is frightened,_ Catelyn realized. But of course she would be. And being so tough and strong, Lyanna wouldn't want to show it.

Catelyn tried to think of some reassurance to give, yet everything sounded so hollow or would make her pain all the worse.

"I am certain the King will treat you gently," she said at last.

Lyanna laughed. "Robert? Gentle?"

Catelyn nearly laughed at the idea too. King Robert was so tall and broad and powerful. Could he possibly have it in him to be gentle? For her good sister, she dearly hoped so.

From what little she had seen, the two of them seemed to get on well with each other. They would play with the children and sometimes practice in the yard together. The only time she ever witnessed Lyanna and Robert fight was when she took Robb into a room adjoining Lyanna's solar to change him. She has heard Robert tell his betrothed there was no evidence against Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch. Lyanna had sounded quite cross and disbelieving at that, questioning if Robert really wanted to do this or if he was only making false promises. She questioned how there could be no evidence when most of the realm's lords witnessed Lord Tywin placing the bodies of mutilated children before the Iron throne.

"He laid the evidence against himself at your feet," she had said.

"But none against Clegane and Lorch, unfortunately," he said.

"Then we can settle for Lannister."

Robert had laughed at that. "Jon would turn kingslayer if I tried that. But I did threaten it, just to see if the old gold shitter would squirm. He didn't."

Otherwise, she seemed adequately content with him, which was more than most women could hope for when entering marriage.

Catelyn and Lyanna passed through rows of trees as they entered a forested area.

"Robert suggested we skip the bedding ceremony and go straight to the bedding chamber together," Lyanna said.

"Thank the Seven."

"I told him no. I will not have the realm think me frail and timid. I am not nervous or afraid."

Catelyn felt a burst of admiration for her good sister. Not many women would be will to go through an already traumatizing and humiliating ceremony after what she went through.

She was about to tell her so when sudden swishing noises sounded around them and a surge of pure pain struck Catelyn directly in the chest. Time slowed as she dropped her gaze to her chest and saw the shaft of an arrow protruding just above her breast. A scream filled the air and it took what seemed like an eternity for her to realize it was her own voice she heard.

Catelyn was vaguely aware of rising shouts and the whinnying of horses as the world grew unsteady beneath her. Desperately she tried to slow her breathing and focus on the chaos around her and what to do about this arrow and the russet circle growing around it. But then her mind suddenly clung onto Robb.

_Robb, Robb, Robb._

That beautiful boy she once pretended was hers and only hers while the husband she barely knew was leagues away. The ache to hold him again was more painful than the hole in her chest.

If she could just make her shaky hands take up the reins again, mayhaps she could return to the keep and to Robb, Catelyn thought as the world grew dimmer and dimmer around her.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

More than a year and a half ago, Lyanna had ridden through the Wolfswood with a handful of guards at her heels when her small party was attacked by a band of dragons.

It hadn't seemed like an ambush at the start. Prince Rhaegar and his men calmly rode toward them on the same path. Lyanna recalled her surprise at seeing him so far north and without notice. She also recalled the anger that sprouted in her chest at the sight of him. When last they had seen each other, he dishonored her and Princess Elia with a wreath of blue roses. A married man did not pass over his own wife in order to crown another woman, not unless she was his mistress. Those roses labeled Lyanna the prince's whore before half the realm.

Yet, she had managed to greet him with civility as if she didn't remember how her family had fled Harrenhal like criminals the very day of that tourney to escape murmurs of "the prince's whore." No, she spoke politely as possible during their pleasantries.

But when they had finished and Lyanna asked if her party might pass, the prince's response was menacing in its simplicity.

"No."

That was when a feeling of dread poured over her. That was when she looked about her to find more dragons quietly pressing in behind them on the path. That was when the wolf pack around her began drawing steel and demanding answers.

Lyanna thought of that day so often that every detail became carved into her memory. She once thought that if her lord father had permitted her to carry a sword, everything would have been different. She could have fought with more than just bare fists against steel armor. More of the guards sworn to House Stark would have lived. Mayhaps she wouldn't have been taken.

Lyanna thought about that every day she was in the training yard, vowing to never feel powerless again.

But powerless was exactly what she felt as an arrow swished right by her head during the ride with Catelyn.

The next arrow would have found purchase in her head had Lyanna not yanked the reins in her freight, bringing her mare to a sudden stop. The sword she wore hung limp and useless at her hip as a drumming pulsed through her ears. Her eyes darted up through the trees above them where the shafts had come. Finding nothing but leaves, Lyanna's gaze moved to her companions. She could hear them shouting as if from a great distance though they surrounded her. The guards loaded crossbows and thrummed bolts at the concealed attackers. One of them, a man in Tully blue and red, fell from his horse, an arrow protruding from an exposed patch of skin along his neck. He wasn't the only one. Two men dropped from the trees above. One hit the ground, limp. The other toppled onto a Stark man. He was shoved to the ground as well.

Lyanna turned to Catelyn. The Tully girl seemed to always have answers for everything. For once, Lyanna wanted to hear her advice on what they should do. But…

_Gods help her!_ Catelyn's entire body shook as her gaze remained transfixed on the arrow embedded in her chest. Her hands moved and clenched in front of her as though she meant to tug the weapon out but they refused to do as they were bid. As her blue eyes slowly fluttered shut, a Tully man pulled her out of the saddle and held her.

The Stark and Tully guards continued shooting arrows into the trees above just as the hidden enemy released another volley. Lyanna tried to evade the assault, but a searing pain exploded forcefully into her left shoulder knocking her out of the saddle.

The ground struck the girl as fierce as a blow.

* * *

"Those bloody Lannisters!" Robert prowled back and forth the length of Lyanna's solar. Pycelle tended her wounds within the bedchamber. "This was their work, those golden shits! I will have all their heads for this."

"Calm yourself," Jon said. The Hand of the King was as still as his sovereign was active. "Hasty words can lead to hasty actions. We must do nothing and leave all heads intact until we know all."

The old man should be comforting his wife and Ned. Lady Catelyn was dead by the time the remainder of the guards carried the ladies through the gates. They needed Jon more than Robert. But instead of giving them comfort, he stayed at the king's side like a septa attempting to soothe a rebellious child.

"What would you have me do?" Robert demanded. "Kneel before the great Tywin and kiss his hand for attacking my betrothed and murdering her good sister? Piss on that!"

"We just ended a war," Jon said. "Would you begin your reign by leading us into another? You will better serve the realm if you approach this rationally. The surviving bandits are being questioned. We will have the truth of this soon."

"Aye, yes, we'll wait. _Then_ I will have Lannister's head."

Jon closed his eyes in exasperation. "Lannister may very well be innocent in this."

"If not him, who?" Robert demanded. "You saw how offended he was at his bannermen being punished. And, damn it all, the man prances his daughter about, trying to get a marriage from me. Lyanna is in his way. Once he saw I wasn't about to set her aside, he tried to do it himself."

"Under that logic, Mace Tyrell must be guilty as well," he said. "His House too would benefit from Lady Lyanna's death. I know his lovely, maiden sister could not have gone unnoticed by you." Jon placed a hand on his foster son's shoulder. "Think Robert. Tywin Lannister is not a fool. He would never arrange so sloppy an attempt. Lyanna would not suffer a mere shoulder wound if this was his work. She and her guards would all lie dead."

Not just Lady Catelyn and a few men. Robert remembered Houses Reyne and Tarbeck, and could see that Jon most likely had the right of it. Tywin Lannister would have delivered more thorough work.

"If not Tywin, mayhaps that daughter of his or the Kingslayer, one or both of them did this," he said.

Before Jon could insist on discretion again, Pycelle emerged from Lyanna's bedchamber. Quickly, Robert moved to rush past the old man.

"Please, Your Grace, she sleeps," Pycelle said. "She woke whilst I dressed the wound. I gave her milk of the poppy to make her more comfortable."

"How does she fare?" Robert asked.

"I cleaned the cuts on her cheek and forehead," Pycelle said. "They should heal cleanly without scars. I am afraid her arm is not so fortunate. I was able to remove the arrow from her shoulder, but the movement in her left arm is severely limited."

"Permanently?" _Seven hells…_ Without her arm, Lyanna wouldn't be able to ride or hunt or do any of the things she loved.

"We will not know for certain until the wound in her shoulder heals," Pycelle said. "She may yet fully recover in a month, mayhaps a few weeks longer. But there will be no knowing for some time, Your Grace."

After the Grand Maester departed, Robert ordered Jon Arryn to do the same. "Tell Ned how his sister fares."

Before Robert slipped into Lyanna's chambers, he prepared himself for a gruesome sight. Blood drained down her face and soaked her tunic when the guards carried her through the gates of the Red Keep behind the body of Catelyn Tully. For a moment, his heart froze from the fear that she too had died. Only when Lyanna winced as the guard slid her from the horse into Roberts's arms did he know she was alive.

As she laid peacefully all covered in blankets, her condition did not look nearly so hand-in-hand with the Stranger. All the blood was cleaned away, and the bandages were fresh and white. Yet, she still looked so frail and helpless. It had been a few weeks since he last thought of her as delicate, yet that was exactly how she seemed now as he took her small hand in his much larger one.

He stayed with her for hours alternating between worry, impatience, and fury. He despised not being able to act. Every so often, he sent for reports on the status of the prisoners.

Nothing. It was always nothing.

During that time Benjen came to see his sister. His eyes were dry and cold. The boy looked murderous, but said near to nothing. Impatient and helpless, the boy soon departed to rejoin Ned in the godswood.

For the first time, Robert envied his friend the faith he had in his gods. Seeking out a sept at that moment was like to frustrate Robert rather than provide comfort.

Just when the king was about to send a messenger to hurry news of the interrogation again, Pia begged entry claiming Rickard wished to see him or his mother.

Even as Robert allowed them in a familiar ball of dread tightened around his heart at the prospect of seeing the boy. He held and played with Rickard near every day. Yet, a worry, a fear still lived within him. At times, that fear refused to be set aside and ignored. He would tense with dread at finding Rhaegar glaring back at him. But as with each time before, Robert found only Lyanna in the boy's face.

"Forgive me, Your Grace," Pia said. "He has been out of temper."

The babe smiled and threw his weight in the king's direction.

"He doesn't look out of temper to me," Robert said and rose from the chair at Lyanna's bedside. "Give him here. Have you been giving your nurse trouble, lad?"

He tossed Rickard into the air and caught the giggling boy.

"We won't be having any of that," he said.

Robert dismissed Pia and sat down with the boy on his lap. Playing with Rickard provided a good distraction and helped raise his spirits. He was so lively and he had Lyanna's look just as Robert's own daughter resembled him. He hadn't thought much on little Mya since he left her in the Vale when the war began. But she was such a sweet little thing. Mayhaps he would send for her.

"I could arrange a marriage between the pair of you," he told Rickard japingly. "She is a bit older, to own the truth. But she's a pretty little thing and a few years will make no difference when you're older."

Rickard looked at him as if he understood.

By the time Varys came to him with confessions of the remaining assassins, it was evenfall. But the long awaited confirmation was well worth the freedom it gave. At last, the king could act.

Robert kissed Lyanna's hand and strode from her chambers.

"My boy," he said to Rickard in the japing tone he reserved for children. "We are about to cage ourselves a lion."

* * *

Lyanna rarely allowed herself to think of her captivity in the supposed tower of joy. She refused to be ruled by it.

Mayhaps it was the milk of the poppy, the fear and helplessness awoken by the day's events, or both. But as Lyanna slept, she dreamt of sad lilac eyes, the promise of a prophecy, winter roses, and the reality of being completely powerless.

Just as in life, the dream began with Rhaegar bringing her roses; blue as frost winter roses like the ones that grew in the glass garden and the ones he slid onto her lap at that tourney.

Lyanna snatched them from his hands and all but drowned herself in them. She always closed her eyes and inhaled the scent in gasping breaths, willing herself home to Winterfell. Those flowers were the only connection to her former life in that boiling dusty wasteland she had been taken to. Even in her dream, the remembered aroma took her back to running through the godswood with Benjen, enviously watching Brandon throw down his opponents in the training yard, and listening to Nan's stories.

Just as in life, the dragon prince's hand fell on her shoulder, breaking the illusion.

As always, he started with gentle touches and whispers of persuasion. Lyanna came back at him with rage and bruising fists. His lilac eyes sank into sadness, but his movements became more persistent and determined until he pinned her down beneath him. The prince even had the gall to whisper apologies in her ear as he forced himself inside of her.

Struggling and attempting to match her strength against his matters not a bit. Howling threats of vengeance does nothing. Rhaegar wanted to force a daughter, the third head of the dragon, into her and there was naught she could do to stop him. Lyanna had never realized how small and weak and insignificant she was.

The dream shifted, becoming murkier. Faintly, she heard Rickard making noises.

Lyanna hadn't given the prince what he so dearly wanted. That girl, the completion of his precious prophecy, never came. Instead of a silver haired daughter of Rhaegar's with lilac eyes, Lyanna gave birth to a boy who was hers and only hers.

Slowly, she began to hear Rickard more clearly. But with the sound came a searing pain in her shoulder.

"Send for Pycelle!" Robert's voice called.

Lyanna struggled to open her eyes. All of the shapes and colors blurred together as she blinked. Finally Benjen's face came into focus.

"Ben," rasped out a husky voice that must have been her own.

"Lya!" Though her brother smiled, lack of sleep creased his face.

A glance over his shoulder at the window told the lateness of the hour. Or the earliness. Pale rays of morning began to stream through.

She looked to her right to see Robert holding Rickard. Instinctively, she tried to reach for the babe only to find her left arm bound to her chest. The pain deepened each time she attempted to move.

"Stop all that," Robert said. "You will hurt yourself. The Grand Maester said you're not to move that arm for some time now."

He brought the babe closer so she could kiss his cheeks.

"Lady Catelyn," Lyanna said at last. "How fares Lady Catelyn?"

Every moment of their ride seemed so blurry. Lyanna hoped she misremembered.

She had not.

Benjen informed her that Ned had come and left while she still slept. He spent a good deal of time with the Tullys and in the godswood.

_Ned blames me,_ she realized. _Why should he not? I brought Catelyn to her death._

"Who, why?" Her head was so heavy with grief and milk of the poppy that Lyanna struggled to make the words come out in the correct order. "Why did they attack us? Who were they? I saw no one."

"Lannister," Robert and Benjen said together with equal venom.

Naturally.

Apparently, the brigands admitted under severe questioning that Tywin Lannister hired them to murder Lyanna and her escort during her daily ride. They had not expected a second lady with her own set of guards. When they attempted to carry out the plan as intended, they were overwhelmed. At the start, the ones who survived were loathe to give up the name of the man who took them into his employ out of fear. Varys did not tell Robert how he convinced them and the king did not ask.

"But his brother and those children of his fled the city," Robert said. "We have no cause to go after them. Tywin did this, not them. So it makes no matter where his cubs go."

He took her hand and squeezed it. Despite her doubts, Lyanna squeezed back allowing this to be a comfort.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

The Lannisters rode hard the night they escaped King's Landing, an eye always cast behind them to watch for pursuit. Yet, days passed and no one came after them.

_Fools._ They thought imprisoning their father would leave the rest of the pride tame. Cersei vowed to herself that all of Westeros would soon find that the lion cubs were just as fierce as Lord Tywin ever was.

But whenever their party stopped for rest, Uncle Kevan would discuss plans with Jaime and pay no heed to any of Cersei's suggestions. She wanted to call the banners immediately and destroy their enemies quickly. Cersei had no training in military tactics, but she knew enough to realize King Robert's armies were weakened from a year of battle and the chief portion of the soldiers returned home. Lord Tywin had only utilized a fraction of the west's strength to take King's Landing. Their forces were still fresh and numerous.

Kevan would hear none of it. He wished to focus on their father's trial and sealing alliances with marriages to fortify their House for the coming storm. As if that would rescue Father!

"The best course will be to offer your hand to Janna Tyrell, Jaime," their uncle said as they dined within his chambers at the inn. "That will bind us to the Reach. And we can bring the Iron Islands to our side by wedding Cersei to one of Lord Balon's brothers or even one of his sons. They are not so much younger than she."

Jaime looked as though he would wretch at this line of talk. "Marriages will not free Father. Swords will."

"Yes," Cersei said. "We must muster our strength and march in force."

"Not without more Houses at our side," Kevan insisted. "By the time we roused the west, your father's trial would be done and settled. But Jaime, you might just have the right of it. This could all be solved with your sword. Mayhaps I was too hasty in our flight. I thought the king might take it into his head to imprison us all lest we flee west and make moves to oppose him. But if he has not sent men after us by now, he is not like to and that is all to the good. Jaime, you will return to King's Landing whilst Cersei and I continue on to the Rock."

"And what, Uncle?" Jaime turned to him lazily. "Take the city on mine own? That should be a fine trick."

"Offer to champion your father in a trial by combat."

Now their uncle was finally speaking sense. Cersei knew no one could best Jaime. Once he slew the champion who dared come against him, their father would be free by all laws of men and gods. Then they would take their vengeance.

"Whilst in the capital, you must treat with Mace Tyrell as discreetly as possible," Kevan continued. "He wishes for his sister to wed the king, but even your father grew to accept that Baratheon would not set Lady Lyanna aside. Tyrell must see the impossibility of that as well. Now that you are heir to the Rock once more, you will be an attractive prospect for any lady. Binding House Lannister with the Tyrells and the Greyjoys will make us a force strong enough to challenge and perhaps remove our new king if needs be."

Cersei was impressed. "These were Father's plans, were they not? He shared them with you somehow?"

"No, it is mine own plan," Kevan said. "Your father wished to wed you to Lord Stannis so long as he received Storm's End as well as Dragonstone. Lord Jon was still-"

"Stannis?" Cersei had thought not to hear of that again. "But why bother himself with the second son when the king himself would soon be unpromiesd? Did he make plans for Robert Baratheon to die as well as the Stark girl?"

Kevan turned his gaze upon her with more than a touch of impatience. "Are you saying you believe your father to be guilty of attempting to murder Lady Lyanna?"

The twins exchanged a glance that ascertained their unity on the topic.

"Why, yes." Jaime turned to their uncle. "I believe my sister is saying she believes our father did this. As do I. Are we wrong? Is there some other mysterious culprit?"

Their uncle sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Tywin Lannister is many things, but a fool is not among them," Kevan said at last. "Why would he order the Stark girl's death when he would be the first one suspected? You must learn to do more than swing a sword, Jaime. You must learn to _think_."

As Cersei settled into her room at the inn that night, she wondered who might have hired those brigands if not Father. Mace Tyrell had reason but the man had milk for blood. He would never dare make so bold a move. The Martells perhaps. Mightn't they blame Lyanna Stark for her part in Elia Martell's death? If it were not for that Northern slut, the princess never would have encountered Gregor Clegane. But whoever did it, they were fools. They botched the job and the whore lived.

Jaime came to Cersei that night just as she knew he would.

He barely said a word as they came together, their bodies knowing each other better than a lion knew its own fur. Jaime moved with her even more fervently than usual, this being their last time before parting.

When they finished, Cersei let him hold her for a time.

"Will King Robert fight you himself, do you think?" she asked.

Jaime laughed. "Only if he is a fool. So yes, sweet sister, he may. Lord Stark will undoubtedly ask the right to take up the challenge too. It was his wife they killed and that would be the only honorable thing, wouldn't it? And Ser Barristan has wanted to taste my blood since the first time he called me Kingslayer. He won't easily let an opportunity like this pass him by. Yes, Selmy will do. His twisted honor will make him stand for the Mad King and the Usurper too. Yes, I can see the three of them squabbling over the right to die at my hands."

"See to it that the king wins that honor," Cersei said.

"Stark would be the easiest to best."

"And how would his death help House Lannister?" Cersei rested her chin on Jaime's chest to look up at him. "His younger brother will become Lord of Winterfell in his stead. We have no gain in that. There is naught to be gained with Selmy's death either."

"Our king has two younger brothers to take _his_ place too."

"One is a boy and the other spent a year starving behind castle walls while their older brother was out covering himself in glory. Neither will be taking King Robert's place if he falls. Neither of them will be a rebel hero who fought for his right to the throne. The rest of the realm need not follow them."

"So no Storm Kings?" Jaime kissed her forehead. "More's the pity."

"The realm knelt to dragons." Cersei reminded him, her mind drifting to Prince Rhaegar and his sad lilac eyes. "Lions might have bedded down with dragons. But why should the lions kneel to the stags? Go to King's Landing. Free our father. And make the Lannisters kings again."

* * *

In the days that followed Catelyn's funeral service in the Sept of Baelor, Lyanna found she didn't just mourn her for Ned and Robb's sake. She truly missed her good sister. Odd since she had only been in the capital so short a time and they had not become fast friends. Lyanna knew Lady Catelyn had sought her company as a duty because she was her sister by law and would soon be her queen. But Catelyn had never been false or scheming like many of the other ladies who endured Lyanna's company. She was honest and blunt, even when Lyanna had no liking for what she had to say. A woman like that could only be valued. Yet she was gone now.

When other ladies dutifully came to call on Lyanna in her solar while she recovered, she tried to be more courteous and interested in them, remembering some advice Catelyn gave her about the importance of forming friendships or at least positive relations with women from other Houses. But even after three days of trying, most of them still seemed to stare at her through fake smiles. Their shrewd eyes studied her every move as though she were a wild animal who was like to charge at them.

The only ones who seemed genuine were Janna Tyrell and Mina Redwyne. Both of the Tyrell sisters had the same love of horses and hunting as Lyanna, and wanted to make plans to go hawking with her once her arm healed.

Other than Robert and Benjen, they seemed to be the only ones who enjoyed her company anymore. Even Eddard was growing more distant, retreating into himself even further as he struggled to heal from yet another loss.

Then there were the Tullys who blamed her for Catelyn's death, as well they might. Lyanna could feel the accusation in their blue-eyed stares. If not for her, Catelyn would be alive. How was it that while others continued to die around her and for her, Lyanna continued to thrive? Though none of them said anything outright, the rift was felt in other ways.

Lysa only grudgingly allowed her to see Robb, whom Lady Arryn had immediately taken charge of. Lyanna didn't press so as not to make things worse for the grieving girl or to

The Tully men always greeted her with stern courtesy and little warmth, even Edmure. When the river lords first arrived in King's Landing with the northmen, the heir of Riverrun and Benjen had been near inseparable. Edmure had seemed to worship the older boy, following him about. But no longer. They were barely polite now.

"He is a little shit," Benjen said stiffly when Lyanna asked.

She wished for some way to heal the rift growing between their Houses, but short of summoning Catelyn back to life, there seemed to be no way of doing so. The only action she could think to take could only put a balm on the wound.

"Have you considered Ser Brynden Tully?" Lyanna asked Robert one evening while they sat together on the cushioned couch in her solar and he shared his troubles with the council, particularly the difficulty of assembling completely fresh Kingsguard.

Being king seemed to be more trouble than it was worth, but Robert couldn't share his frustrations with Jon Arryn because he was part of the troubles. He also couldn't burden Ned, who was grieving. So he had taken to talking with Lyanna about the tediousness of it all. In turn, she told him of her own irritation with trying to say the right things with these women who had very little in common with her.

"The Blackfish?" Robert's thumb absently rubbed circles in the palm of Lyanna's hand. "That old man?"

"Old? He is younger than Ser Barristan," Lyanna said. "He proved his worth in the War of the Ninepenny Kings and in the rebellion."

"That he did." He paused a moment. "Mayhaps he will do. The other names brought before us are lordlings known for nothing, but keeping to the edge of battles where it's safest. We need someone who knows what to do with a sword besides polish it."

Lyanna couldn't help smiling. "The way men deem each other worthy. It is odd thinking of you, Jon, and Ser Barristan assessing how well other men swing and polish and sheath their swords."

Robert stared at her a moment before letting out a booming laugh that soon had her joining in. They probably laughed longer than the small jape warranted with one of them starting up again soon after they had both stopped.

Shoulders still shaking, he pressed Lyanna's hand to his lips. "We should be married by now."

Lyanna's heart tightened at the words and all of the mirth from moments before fled. _You should be fucking me by now, you mean,_ she thought as she drew her hand away.

As much affection as she was beginning to feel for her betrothed, the thought of laying with anyone made her feel uneasy.

But Robert was not completely wrong though. If not for the Targaryens they would have married a few moons after Brandon and Catelyn. If not for Tywin Lannister and his hired brigands, they would have wed the day after her attack. Instead, they had to put off the wedding. As necessary as the delay was, she could almost understand his frustration.

Lyanna rose and strode to the window looking over the capital. "The Others take Catelyn. How dare she die right when we were to marry. If she had any kindness she would have waited until after the wedding feast. Or better still, the bedding ceremony."

Robert let out a groan as he approached her from behind. "Oh, Lya, you know I meant no such thing." His thickly muscled arms wrapped around her. "I merely want you to be my lady wife."

"It is only respectful to wait." Lyanna's heart pounded painfully against her ribs. She tried not to think of how much bigger and stronger than her he was. She tried to keep her voice calm and powerful. "We will marry in a fortnight. That is still rather soon considering."

"We need not wait for everything," he whispered and kissed her neck.

"Don't!"

Lyanna jolted sharply away from him. She was rewarded with a searing pain in that damnable shoulder.

"Seven hells!"

Guilt streaked his face as he helped her back to the couch. "Forgive me," he mumbled awkwardly. "I did not mean to hurt you. I- I will send for Pycelle."

"No." She took his hand and pulled him beside her. "Stay."

He kissed her hand again. "A fortnight will pass quickly."

"It will," she agreed.

The two weeks would slip by. Soon enough the men of the court would tear the clothing from her body during the bedding ceremony. The thought of it frightened her and she hated herself for being frightened. Perhaps Robert was right, in his way. Perhaps they should start now so she could be brave by then.

Having made up her mind, Lyanna leaned forward, careful not to put any strain on her wounded shoulder. She kissed him quickly.

Robert blinked in surprise before moving in on her.

Lyanna held out her good hand. "Wait. We shall begin slowly. Just kissing."

He nodded.

It was quite awkward at first. With her left arm bound across her chest, Lyanna could only embrace him with the right arm. Robert attempted wrapping his own arms around her gingerly so as not to put pressure on the wound. Once they settled, they stared at each other. Robert snorted and laughed.

Lyanna found herself laughing again as well. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be, is it?"

Still chuckling softly, Robert cupped her cheek and kissed her again. He wasted little time in deepening the kiss and running his tongue along the line between her lips, pushing for entry.

Lyanna pulled back. "Are you trying to put your tongue in my mouth? Should I be putting mine in yours too?"

Robert's blue eyes regarded her in surprise. "I- What?"

"I want to do this properly."

"Properly? Well, we just do it, is all."

This time when they kissed, she opened her mouth and tried to mimic his movements. They were settling into a pleasant rhythm until Robert began leaning her back into the couch.

She turned her face away again. "You're pushing me down. Stop that."

He looked at her queerly again, but he heeded her request … for a few moments. Then he began to ease her back again.

Lyanna smacked his shoulder with her right hand. "I said stop. I won't have you forcing me down."

Robert growled in frustration. "Here." Lyanna's stomach leapt as he lifted her by the waist and swirled them about in one swift movement, settling her in his lap so she straddled him. "How is that?"

She adjusted her skirts awkwardly as she looked down at him. His strength and size no longer felt so unnerving with him beneath her.

"It will serve," Lyanna said before lowering her mouth onto his once more.

For the next few days, they spent part of the evening wrapped in each other and Lyanna found that she rather liked it… when he wasn't trying to tug at her bodice or jerkin. But sometimes she was so caught up in his heated kisses, she allowed him to grasp at her through her clothes and run his mouth down her neck to the tops of her breasts. On the third day, she even allowed him to slip his hand between the folds of her skirt, mostly out of curiosity to see what he meant to do.

Robert eased his hand between her thighs and cupped her there. She gasped shakily.

"Gods you're hot…" he rasped against her neck, pressing his palm for firmly against her through the smallclothes.

Of their own accord, her hips moved against his hand.

Robert laughed. "You like that, do you?"

"Shut up," she said before covering his mouth with hers.

As his fingers moved against her through the fabric, she couldn't help but moan into his kiss. A maddening heat coiled in her belly, tighter and tighter until-

Lyanna's nails sank into the skin along the back of his neck as her body seized and succumbed to shudders. She pressed herself close to him as the foreign sensation flowed over her.

"If you liked that," Robert said when her breathing began to steady, "there are other things we can do that will cast no shadow on your virtue."

"How sweet of you to speak as though I have any virtue left," Lyanna said, wondering how many women he had ruined with those words.

"Lya-"

Gracelessly, she moved away from him. "Thank you, that was- I liked that very much. But we should stop for tonight."

As usual, Robert tried to dissuade her, but soon left when she showed no sign of giving in.

Lyanna watched him go wondering if he would sate himself on someone less difficult. She had to remind herself that she didn't care one bit who he laid with.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Lyanna found herself spending the afternoon surrounded by roses.

She met the Tyrell sisters in the stables. There was one royal mare, Ruby, whom Lyanna had become quite fond of bringing mints and apples. The sisters had just returned from hawking.

The three women readily fell into conversation about Janna and Mina's morning adventure in hunting, which soon turned to a discussion of the best breed of hunting bird and then to family.

"Our nephew, Willas, is only nine, but he's already keen on becoming a little hunter," Lady Janna said. "He follows our trainers about, asking endless questions and wanting to try this and that for himself."

"He is the same with horses," Lady Mina said.

"I was the same when I was younger," Lyanna said. "Always driving our master-of-horse out of his wits."

"You would do well in Highgarden," she said. "A love of hunting and horses runs deep in the Tyrell blood. Mace's newest little rosebud will surely be the same. She is called Margaery. She is at home with her mother and brothers."

Lyanna wondered what it would be like to have a daughter. Not having known her own mother very long made her curious about what such a bond would bring. That curiosity was sated, in part, when she had tea that afternoon with Janna, Mina, and their mother.

The Queen of Thrones she was called, and she seemed to be quite the thorn in the sides of her daughters as she seemed to bluntly share each thought she had as soon as it entered her mind. She even shared how Jaime Lannister had apparently attempted to treat with the Tyrells, hoping to arrange a marriage between himself and the Lady Janna.

"I can't imagine why the Lannisters would think House Tyrell so desperate we would align ourselves with them, now of all times," Lady Olenna said, as they drank their tea. "I supposed it couldn't possibly be because my oaf son was all but begging the king to take his little sister off his hands. The Lannisters must think us quite desperate if they believe we would align ourselves with them whilst Lord Tywin is accused of murder."

"Mother, please." Lady Janna smiled. "I am certain Lady Lyanna has no wish to listen to such gossip."

"Janny, pretend you have some wit about you," the old woman said. "Lady Lyanna's already heard of your brother's subtle suggestions from the king himself, most like. She seems like a woman with a taste for honesty, I suggest we give it to her."

If her mother's words embarrassed her, Lady Janna gave no sign of it. Her face remained placid and unperturbed.

"My son wanted your betrothed for your new friend here, and now he wants the king's brother since he can't get him," Olenna continued. "But if my oaf son were as savvy as he thinks himself, he would keep our House as far from that ugly throne as possible. He gushes on and on about having a queen for a sister becoming Hand someday, but doesn't even think of what happened to the Hands that came before him. Dead. Exiled. Banished to the Wall. Imprisoned." The old woman let out a high pitched tut. "It would serve that fool boy right to learn that mistake the hard way. But I won't have that for my sweetling. You are welcome to the crown, my dear."

Lyanna just stared at her, wondering why the older woman was saying all of this. Was it some sort of manipulation? She had no schooling in court intrigues and couldn't begin to try unraveling this one, if that was indeed what it was.

"The king tells me your son and the council are working to arrange a marriage between Lady Janna and Lord Stannis," Lyanna said, just for the sake of saying something.

"Gods girl, didn't I just mention that? He would position his sister as near the throne as possible, even if it means marrying her to the man he nearly starved to death during the war. We hear Lord Stannis wants none of it. Will the king heed him or force the marriage to get an alliance out of the Reach?"

"I have no notion of what he intends," she said. "I don't bother with any of that political maneuvering. I don't care for politics."

The woman let out another tut. "That would be all well and good if you were hiding beneath all that snow in the North. Not here. Not King's Landing. Not when you will be queen. Don't 'bother' with politics all you want. Others will make certain to bother with you regardless."

* * *

_I wasn't made for this,_ Robert thought as he shifted in that damned throne, searching for a comfortable position.

So uncomfortable was the king, he could hardly pay attention to the tall woman with the lovely ebony skin who came before the council to petition for compensation. During the sacking of the capital, her brothel was looted, and much of the property was damaged. A few days after the city was taken, Wisdom Belis was murdered behind the establishment where he was rude enough to leave claw marks on the rear door, where he attempted to gain entry.

The council granted the woman enough money to repair the damage to the building, which Stannis wasting much of the proceedings arguing against even that.

Robert settled against one arm of the throne and glanced over the gallery of courtiers who attended court. He had hoped to see Ned leaning against one of the columns, as he had oft been known to before when they held court. But he continued to keep to himself no matter how often Robert tried to cheer him – proposing hunting trips, trying to convince him to drink with the king and Thoros, and even suggesting he take his old friend to a brothel to help him forget. Ned merely refused and expressing his eagerness to return to Winterfell quickly after Robert and Lyanna's wedding.

Another man, a merchant, came forth to present his petition.

It seemed his shop and storages were destroyed during the Battle of the Bells. Given that he claimed to be one of the many citizens of Stoney Sept who refused to assist Jon Connington in his search for Robert before the battle, the merchant felt he should receive enough money to rebuild and replace his goods.

"I's always a Baratheon man," the merchant said eagerly when the council agreed to his request. "Always."

Petitions from Stoney Sept had the advantage of being granted with monies from the previously vast Griffin's Roost estates. That was one benefit to the former Lord Connington's fruitless effort to capture Robert before getting himself exiled. His relatives former lands could be parceled out as presents and his relatives could be squeezed for compensation for his crimes.

There were always several such petitions each time they held court. Each more tedious than the last. If it wasn't complaints over damages done in the Battle of the Bells, it was over the Sack of King's Landing or the crops that were burned here or there. It never ended.

When the claims first began stumbling in, Robert felt great sympathy for the victims of the war, and often insisted on granting them even more than they asked, which Jon and Stannis called foolishness. But now, after months of hearing endless complaints, his sympathy was spent.

The only thing nearly as tedious was all the redrawing of borders and dolling out pardons and sorting out ransoms.

Robert wasn't made for any of this.

He shifted once more, before giving up. At least he hadn't cut himself on the damn throne yet.

But, gods be praised, the Stoney Sept merchant looked to be the last of the day.

The herald stepped forward. "If any man in this hall has other matters to set before his grace, let him speak now or go forth and hold his silence."

Instead of the silence Robert longed to hear, a voice near the back of the hall shouted, "Your Grace!"

Robert, who had been rising, fell back onto the throne. "Come forward."

The lords and ladies of the court were already parting for the golden man garbed in crimson.

"Ser Jaime of House Lannister," the herald cried.

The former White Sword had returned to court some days ago after having escorted his sister half the distance to Casterly Rock. Apparently, he and his uncle had no wish for Lady Cersei to witness her father's execution and thought she would be more comfortable leagues away. Since his return, Robert heard Ser Jaime spent a great deal of time locked up with Tywin in his tower cell. When the young lion was not with his father, the king saw him here and there about the keep acting smug and quite pleased with himself.

This day was no different.

Ser Jaime strode forward with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, even as he knelt before the king and council.

"Your Grace, I come before you on the grave matter of my father, Lord Tywin Lannister," he said. "It would seem someone has imprisoned your Warden of the West in this very keep under your own nose. I would petition your assistance in releasing him."

A hesitant snicker buzzed through the gallery that only grew bolder as Robert leant his own voice to the laughter. Stannis looked over his shoulder from the council table and frowned at his brother.

"The Kingslayer's petition is denied," Robert said. "Bring an end to it, herald."

"I have a second petition to set before you, Your Grace," Lannister said. "If my lord father is to remain imprisoned, he must have a trial."

"He shall," Jon Arryn said. "Lord Tywin's case shall be tried before court with the king, myself, and Mace Tyrell as the judges."

"And what a fine trio of unbias you would be, no doubt. But I would rather rest my father's fate I the hands of an even higher authority. Let the gods decide. King Robert Baratheon, I challenge you to face me in a trial by combat to prove the innocence or guilt of my lord father, Tywin of House Lannister."

Hissing whispers filled the cavernous hall.

Robert stared at Ser Jaime with his brow raised. That would settle the matter quickly and efficiently, taking the advantage away from Lord Tywin entirely. Just that afternoon, Lord Jon had complained of the lack of solid evidence linking Tywin to the crime.

"The word of sellswords who admit they never saw the face of their employer is not convincing," he had said. "We cannot convict a man on so flimsy an accusation, nor should we have taken him into custody so quickly."

They might have difficulty convicting Tywin in a proper trial, but this trial by combat was a different matter. For all the boy's confidence, Robert would have no trouble at all crushing the Kingslayer. The fool obviously didn't have the wit to see that the king he would be facing this time wasn't a scab-covered old man.

Yes, the Kingslayer's plan had merit.

But Jon stood before Robert could agree.

"Ser, this is neither the place nor the time. We will have the final decision on the form of the trial directly from Lord Tywin, not his son. Herald, I believe the king called an end to today's proceedings."

"Is our king so craven he hides behind his foster father instead of responding to a challenge directly?" Ser Jaime grinned. "Tell me, did the good and virtuous Lady Lyanna take possession of your manhood before or after she convinced you to raise Rhaegar Targaryen's bastard?"

The hall fell silent. Robert could feel the weight of nearly every eye in the room upon him even as a surge of rage pounded through him. He didn't remember rising from that monstrous throne, but he was on his feet.

"Boy!" Robert called to his squire, Harold Templeton, who stood in the gallery.

"Or was it even before that, when she convinced you to wed her even though she was the soiled whore of a fallen prince?"

"Fetch my hammer! Now!"

The lad rushed from the hall.

"Robert," Jon began. "This is not-"

"Arm yourself, Lannister! I swear I will destroy you right now in this very _hall_!"

Ser Jaime smiled.

"Boy! Where is that bloody hammer?!"

"I take it my challenge is accepted," the Kingslayer said.

"No!" Jon signaled the gold cloaks. "Clear the hall! These proceedings are concluded."

Barristan Selmy hurried from the council table to assist the gold cloaks.

"That golden-haired shit isn't going-"

Stannis stepped into Robert's path before he could pursue the swaggering Lannister from the hall. "Must you insist on making an utter fool of yourself in front of the better part of your vassals? The time will come to fight him. That is unavoidable now."

"He will not meet him in combat," Jon said in a hushed voice as the Great Hall continued to empty. "That would be folly. We cannot risk the king in single combat for a mere trial. We certainly can't now when that is exactly what the Lannisters wish."

Robert laughed bitterly, the fury still coursing through him. "What risk is that? Do you truly believe he could best me? Bah! I could-"

"You are gifted with strength, youth, and ability," Jon said. "As is Ser Jaime. Both of you are also cursed with a great deal of arrogance. Only the gods know which of you would best the other."

"You forget you are speaking to your king."

"No." Jon rested a hand on his shoulder. "I am giving honest counsel to my king and one of my son's."

The rage in him began to still. Robert returned the gesture.

"Gods, old man." Robert returned the gesture with a chuckle. "You never will stop harrying me, even when I do finally get that crown on my head."

"Just so long as you insist on being so difficult," Jon said with grudging affection. "But heed me now. Do not trigger this Lannister trap."

He was right, but there was no changing course now. "How can I let what he said about Lya pass unanswered?"

"There is nothing to discuss." Stannis had his arms crossed. "You already agreed you cannot honorably refuse now."

"He can and shall," Jon insisted.

The Great Hall echoed with the closing doors, signaling the departure of the last courtier.

Ser Barristan returned to the king.

"Your Grace, allow me to act as your champion in this trial. It is not fitting for the king to risk himself. Your people will understand and expect a member of your kingsguard to fight in your stead. There is no shame in this."

Barristan must be as mad as Aerys if the old knight truly believed there was no shame in being championed by a man twice his age.

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat. "If I may, Your Grace, I would point out Ser Jaime's remarks about the Lady Lyanna. All of court will repeat his insults upon our future queen and her honor."

"This is nothing new," Stannis said. "All of court already questioned our new queen's virtue. The smallfolk too."

Robert rounded on his brother.

"That's the truth of it," Stannis insisted evenly. "Davos tells me men laugh at you in their cups throughout the taverns of King's Landing."

"With all this talk of your betrothed's lack of virtue before court and outside, the realm will question why you refused to face a man who so boldly insulted her," Pycelle said. "You must fight, Your Grace, or your people will see no need to respect her, or you, any more than Ser Jaime does."

"That woman's poor reputation will not be healed by risking the king's life," Jon insisted.

The doors to the hall opened once more. Harold Templeton and another lad came in carrying the king's hammer.

"Gods damn you all!" Robert marched away from his council toward the doors. He ignored the boys as when they asked if he still wanted the hammer.

A man couldn't think with all his councilors' back and forth, but the battle was no better in the king's own mind. Jon had the right of it. This was a trap and he'd be a fool to set it off. But Pycelle knew what he was about as well. He couldn't let insults against Lyanna pass unchallenged.

The guards opened the doors at his approach. As soon as he passed into the corridor, Robert found Mace Tyrell lurking without.

"Your Grace!" The Lord of Highgarden fell into step beside the king. "That was an ugly business, was it now?"

Robert said nothing, vowing to himself that this rose would find itself pruned if he dared use this opportunity to hoist his sister onto the king.

"Very ugly business," Tyrell repeated. "If I may be so bold, I hope you mean to accept that boy's challenge and set him down. That's what I would do. Set him down straight away."

Any other time, Robert would have laughed. Mace was as menacing as his sigil. But the king could only think of what Lannister and the council had said.

_…men laugh at you in their cups…_

_… Or was it even before that, when she convinced you to wed her even though she was the soiled whore of a fallen prince…_

It was a dagger to his pride.

"At times like these, it is most important to form the right alliances," Tyrell continued. "Have you given more thought to a marriage contract between our siblings? I know Janna is quite taken with Lord Stan-"

"My brother doesn't want your damned sister."

Robert knew he shouldn't have said that even as his mother formed the words. He should have japed with the rose lord without promising or outright refusing him. But gods be good, he could take no more of any of this.

He left Tyrell stammering in the corridor as he stormed back to Maegor's Holdfast.

By the time the king arrived in Lyanna's solar to dine with her that night, he had calmed some, but not enough to see Rickard with the same enthusiasm.

Lyanna sat with the lad and one of Ned's boys on the floor. Though her arm was still bound to her chest, Lya tried to play at blocks with them. The boys weren't having any of it though. Rickard seemed more intent on attempting to tug at the stray piece of cloth dangling from her bandage while little Jon rocked back and forth, attempting to crawl in the direction of the fireplace.

"No, my love, stop that," she said to Rickard while grabbing Jon by the foot with her free hand. "I don't much like these bandages either but they must stay for the time. A week more at least."

"Tell me, when you talk to him, has he ever responded to you?" Robert smiled as he tried to sound jovial. He picked up Rickard to stop him from continuing to tug at her bandages. The babe responded by babbling at him quite seriously.

Lyanna smiled up at him. "Not as yet, but we keep trying."

Robert regarded the boy and inwardly cursed the gods. Why couldn't the lad be their son?

"The Grand Maester tells me my shoulder is healing cleanly," she told him. "I will most likely be able to use it again. He said I can even forgo the extra binding so it doesn't mare the gown at the wedding, so long as I'm careful."

"Good, good," he said absently.

Only two days more and they would be wed. Somehow he felt that would solve everything.

Pia and Wylla soon collected the boys, leaving Robert and Lyanna alone for their dinner of minced lamb.

"As we teach Rickard how to talk, we should decide what he should call you," Lyanna said.

The words twisted the dagger already in his gut. "Aye, we should."

Lyanna told him of her morning with the ladies of House Tyrell, but he barely heard a word.

"What is it?" she finally asked. "Something is wrong."

_This is nothing new_, Stannis had said.

"No, it is nothing, my lady," he said, pouring another glass of wine.

She let the silver fork fall to her plate with a clank. "Liar."

Robert emptied the glass without bothering to set the flagon down. "The Kingslayer. He came before the court today. He wants to fight me in a trial by combat."

"That is good isn't it? You will defeat him and his father will be found guilty."

"Aye," he agreed. "I'll crush that smug little shit."

"There's something else."

It wasn't a question.

_…men laugh at you in their cups throughout the taverns of King's Landing…_

_… she convinced you to raise Rhaegar Targaryen's bastard…_

"My daughter," Robert said. "I haven't seen her since before the war. I would bring her to court."

"The one you got on the girl in the Vale?" Lyanna asked. "How old is she now?"

"She'll be four in a few moons. You have no objections, I trust."

"Do I have a right to object? No. Send for her. But you're not telling me everything. By all means don't if you don't want to, but know that I can tell."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

The members of the small council slipped away from the Great Hall soon after the king, leaving Jon Arryn to stare down the Iron Throne and think of a way out of this Lannister mess.

Attempting to find solutions to newly lain messes seemed to be his thankless duty now that he was Hand.

Since the rebellion ended, Jon often felt as though the simple task had been completed and the true challenges were beginning. Without the ever hovering fear of the Targaryens to bind the realm together, the business of keeping the realm united under the rule of a new king was difficult enough. The added troubles that cropped up one after another only made a near impossible effort all the worse.

Instead of improving as they went along, the strength of their new regime only continued to deteriorate. The Martells was disinclined to be more than distantly civil. Former Loyalists, the Tyrells, were eager to be friendly, but Stannis was less than eager to oblige them in what they wanted. Now their former allies the Lannisters were not only permanently lost to them, they were officially enemies.

The realm seemed to be falling apart piece by piece and only Jon seemed keen on holding the fragments together.

At least that was how the Hand of the King felt most days, that afternoon particularly.

The longer Jon stared at that throne, the wearier he became.

"Ghastly chair, is it not, my lord Hand?"

Jon turned to see Varys behind him. The master of whispers had held his council during the debate, keeping so quiet he was forgotten amongst all the loud opinions.

"Ghastly scene, too." The eunuch shook his head. "I should hate to find out what Se Jaime has planned. I worry that he has more in mind than just an honest duel."

Jon feared that as well, though he doubted Varys' concerns were genuine. Not very long ago he whispered in the Mad King's ear. Jon hoped rather than believed they could trust him now, just as he worried over Grand Maester Pycelle's loyalties. But the man's gifts were too valuable to do without in this time of uncertainty.

Even so, Jon's instincts told him not to trust the spider. He had caused enough trouble by giving the king a confession of sellswords that prompted Lord Tywin's arrest, but had since been unable to produce a shred of additional evidence to support the claim. Even when Jon had questioned the sellswords himself, the only information he gleaned was that the cloaked man they spoke to had reeked of peaches and claimed to be enlisting them for Tywin Lannister's service, meaning they would be paid handsomely for their work.

"A lion always pays his debts, that's what he said, m'lord," one of the filthy men had claimed.

And that was only convincing if one took Lord Tywin for a complete fool.

Still, Jon decided to hear Varys' words none the less. Was it not better to hear what he had to say for himself, rather than allow the Spider to pour more oil on the king's fire?

"Do you have a reason for this concern?" Jon asked Varys.

"Unfortunately, yes." The eunuch nodded gravely. "My little birds tell me the most grievous tales. Purposeful slaughter in the streets. A sister urging her brother to double the number of kings he has slain. It is all quite dreadful."

Jon started. "Cersei Lannister was heard plotting the king's death with her brother?"

Varys nodded again. "Hard to believe. She does look so young and so innocent, does she not? But yes, one of my little birds had flown with the Lannister retinue on their own flight back to Casterly Rock. The night before Ser Jaime turned back to rejoin us, the pair of cubs were heard plotting to kill the King Robert so that … what was the turn of phrase? Oh, yes, so that the Lannisters could be kings again."

Jon stared at him. He did find that difficult to believe. Lady Cersei had appeared quite gracious and demure when he saw her at court. The Maiden crafted of gold and ivory.

But even so, his chest clenched in panic at the thought that his fears of Lannister harboring ulterior plans may well be justified. "I will have the name of this witness."

"Oh, I can't give you that, my lord Hand." Varys looked shocked. "If I gave away the names of my little birds, they would stop confiding their tales to me. We couldn't have that."

"You expect me to act based on the word of a nameless little bird?"

"I only mean to put you and the king on guard," he said. "But if you should wish to act, you would have no need to move against Ser Jaime with just the word of one of my little birds. You could always arrest him for those murders he committed after King's Landing fell."

"The king pardoned him for killing Aerys Targaryen."

"Pity that, considering the current predicament. But I was referring to Ser Jaime's murder of your predecessor, Lord Rossart, and his Alchemists' Guild colleagues, Wisdoms Garigus and Belis. The king hasn't gotten around to pardoning him for those crimes yet, I don't believe."

Jon drew in a deep breath to remain calm. "I warn you, Lord Varys, if you are playing some sort of odd jape with me, you will not find yourself on the king's council much longer. You had better have true evidence against Ser Jaime."

Varys smiled placidly. "Give me but an hour, my lord Hand."

Shockingly, the Spider produced convincing witnesses in a most timely fashion.

No one had ever asked about who killed Rossart. But a servant had watched from an alcove while Ser Jaime shoved the golden sword into the alchemist Hand before making his way to the Great Hall to finish Aerys.

The city was so filled with corpses in the days following the sacking that no one bothered to report two more, particularly when they were made by a man pardoned for slaying a king. But now that the Lannisters seemed out of favor, the wisdoms from the Alchemists' Guild were eager to step forward with evidence against Ser Jaime. Even a man who had been wise enough to look the other way when Wisdom Belis was stalked into the alleyway behind Chayata's was now willing to talk as well.

Jon was still uneasy of trusting Varys in something so important. But the amount of witnesses the man brought together was convincing. Such senseless crimes should not go unpunished. And besides, Jon saw no other sure way to intercede in this supposed Lannister plot.

So with weariness settling in his chest, Jon moved to take action that very evening before Robert could object.

"Why is it you have gathered so much testimony for a crime the crown was not yet investigating, yet you have been unable to gather anything of substance against Lord Tywin," Jon asked before they parted.

"Even I am not infallible, Lord Jon," Varys said. "Good luck, my lord Hand."

Jon marched on Ser Jaime's chamber with the commander of the City Watch, Lord Manly Stokeworth, and several of his gold cloaks trailing behind him. Lannister had returned with only a two men-at-arms and only one stood sentry at his door. If the gods were good, this would be simple and bloodless. The true challenge would come with the fallout afterward.

"We have business with Ser Jaime," Stokeworth said.

The guard ran a nervous glance over the party. "Ser Jaime is with- is occupied, m'lords. Not to be disturbed."

"Stand aside in the name of the king," the commander demanded more forcefully. "Or you shall find a place in the black cells beside him."

The young guard quickly opened the chamber door.

As Jon and the others strode into the chambers, he saw a pair of men seated in chairs by the fire. Jon barely kept the curse from passing his lips. While Lannister reclined languidly on one side, swirling a goblet in his hand, Mace Tyrell leaned forward speaking urgently.

At their entrance, the Lord of Highgarden rose with a gasp. "My lord Hand, I-"

"Lord Jon!" Ser Jaime had remained seated. A grin settled easily on his face. "Do join us. We were just enjoying a flagon of the Reach's famed Abor gold. Oh, you brought friends. Unfortunately, we only have one flagon."

Jon regarded the golden youth and Mace Tyrell in turn as Lord Stokeworth informed Ser Jaime of the crimes he stood accused of. Mace's brown eyes grew round as saucers. Lannister's flickered with first shock and then amusement.

"Well, this is a surprise." Ser Jaime laughed bitterly and tilted the goblet to take a drink. "I knew the drought of honesty I served at court may lead to a response, but this is not the one I anticipated. Is Robert Baratheon truly such a coward? Arrest me rather than fight me? Oh, and not just that. He sends an old man to arrest me rather than come himself." Laughing, he turned to Mace. "Now that is the mark of a true king. I should know. I did have the honor of killing one."

And you shan't have the honor of killing a second, Jon thought.

He nodded at the gold cloaks and Stokeworth stepped forward to take the Kingslayer into custody. Thankfully, he put up no physical resistance. He merely began a continuous stream of conversation as they left his chambers.

"Do see yourself out, Mace," he called over his shoulder. "I am sorry I've turned out to be such an abominable host." He turned to the gold cloak beside him as they continued down the corridor. "Do you know what's funny, what's absolutely hilarious in all this? Do you? Well, I will tell you. A man can slay a king he was sworn to protect and get a pardon. But if he kills pyromancers… No good deed goes unpunished, you see."

"Is that a confession, Lannister?" Jon asked form behind him.

"No, Arryn, I am afraid not. You shall not be rid of me or my father so easily. Before the end, you will hear the lions roar and it will do away with what remains of your hearing, old man."

* * *

Lyanna was cross with him. All throughout the rest of their dinner she barely spoke another word. That was just as well. Robert had no wish for conversation either. With Jaime Lannister's words ringing in his mind, he had no need for further discussion.

But even without speaking to each other, they had no difficulty resuming their now routine evening practice of touching and kissing each other on her couch.

Not long after the serving girl cleared their dishes away, Lyanna was pushing him down into the cushions as their mouths came together.

It was a relief to know that no matter how cross they were, they need not let that get in the way of enjoying each other.

When they had first begun weeks ago, Lyanna was hesitant and curious like many a maiden. She had asked question after question, even as she swatted at his roving hands. Since then, she had grown more aggressive, kissing Robert back with equal passion and informing him of exactly what she wanted.

As always, he marveled at how much smaller than him she was. As he readjusted her in his lap, she barely weighed a thing.

As Robert kissed her and grasped her dark hair, he thought of how much more he loved Lyanna now than he had before or even during the war. He loved that the scent of horses often clung to her like perfume. The king drank it in, running kisses down her neck. He adored that she could wear gowns or breeches with equal ease. Somehow he even admired the ways she was so bloody obstinate with him at times. That push and pull friction between them was as intoxicating as it was maddening.

Robert's lips trailed along the base of her neck, preparing to sink lower.

She forced his chin up and reclaimed his mouth.

"I'm still cross with you," Lya said between kisses. "But we're to marry the day after the morrow. So… Perhaps we could… we could lay together now just so to grow accustomed to one another by then."

Robert stared up at her. He loved Lya, but damned if he understood her. One moment, she would kiss him in a heated fever, tugging his hair in her fists. The next she would bring an abrupt halt to their evening. When he had already accepted they would wait until the bedding ceremony, she wished to begin now.

Well, he certainly wouldn't be the one to complain.

Smoothly, Robert slipped an arm about her waist and stood up. With a gasp of surprise, she steadied herself, wrapping her free arm around his neck and secured her legs around him.

A few quick strides took them to her bedchamber. A fire blazed in the hearth serving as the sole light in the room. He kicked the door shut behind them.

Lyanna laughed. "Really, if you would rather not, don't let me coerce you. We can always try some other time."

"No, my lady, I shall do my duty," he said solemnly, setting her on the edge of the bed.

Never having undressed a woman in breeches before, Robert knew not how to begin. He must take care with her arm which was still on the mend. And there were those breeches and boots to do away with.

Gently, they worked together to unfasten the binding. She flexed her fingers and moved her arm as far as she dared just to test the boundaries. While her shoulder still required looking after, Lyanna hadn't lost the use of her arm as the Grand Maester had feared.

"Pycelle says I'll recover soon, but not without scarring," she said.

"Warriors should have scars." Robert knelt in front of her and gingerly ran his fingers over the bandaged shoulder. "I have my share."

As he began to tug the white wool blouse from her breeches, a flash of fear flickered over Lyanna's face before quickly disappearing. She was soon unfastening the buttons of his doublet. Before she could finish, he was tugging the blouse upward. But, before he could, she clasped his hands.

"We should put out the fire," she said, nodding toward the hearth. "You shan't like what you see under there."

Robert was unsure of what to say. He had lain with a fishwife out of Gulltown who carried the scars of pregnancy across her belly. But that would do little to reassure her.

Nor did it reassure him.

_…even though she was the soiled whore of a fallen prince…_

But he forced Lannister's words from his mind. Soon he would have his own child growing in Lya's belly. He need not worry about the past.

Robert pressed a kiss to smooth skin above her knuckles. "My lady, I shall love every inch of you." He turned her hand over and pressed his lips into her palm. "As often as I can."

Before he could attempt easing her blouse up again, a voice called for Lyanna from the solar.

The king cursed. Lyanna laughed.

She mussed his hair. "Let's see who has come to bother us."

As they climbed to their feet, a knock sounded against the bedchamber door and it creaked open.

"Lya, do you know where Robert has gotten to?" Ned stopped as he saw them. His brow crushed together. "What's all this?"

Robert and Lyanna looked at each other and then back at Eddard.

"Come, Ned." Robert laughed. "We are to wed in two days. What does it matter if we-"

"You were looking for the king," Lyanna interrupted. Though she held her chin high, there was a blush keeping along her cheeks. "Here he is."

Ned's grey eyes remained frozen, but he kept his peace.

"Robert will have told you what happened at court today," he said.

"Aye, he did." She nodded. "Ser Jaime wishes to face him in single combat. More fool him, I say."

"But what's this I'm hearing of Lannister's arrest?" he asked Robert.

"Arrest?"

"The entire keep is speaking of it, saying her arrested the Kingslayer," Eddard said. "I came to you to find the truth of it. I would challenge him myself for the insults he made against Lya alone. But arresting-"

"What did he say against me?" she asked. When she glanced at Robert, her gaze suddenly matched her brother's in chilliness.

"You didn't tell her?"

"She had no need to hear that filth," Robert insisted.

"I will be the one to decide what I need to hear." Lyanna regarded him. "Is that what had you so upset? Is that what you wouldn't tell me? What did he say?"

Robert and Ned exchanged a look.

"I assume the words whore, bastard, shame, and dishonor were involved," she said when the question met only silence. "Did he try to provoke you by naming me a slut who is leading you around by the cock and dragging the realm through shame and moral ruin?"

Ser Jaime had said it a bit more politely than that.

"According to the grooms I've spoken to in the stables, there isn't much love for me in the Red Keep," she said. "This isn't new. You're wasting time trying to shield me from the truth. At least the Kingslayer said it out loud instead of whispering it behind his hands or in his cups as the rest of court does."

"Who?" Robert demanded. A part of him refused to believe it was true. The entire city had cheered for her when they first returned to King's Landing. They loved her as he did. "Who else has insulted you? I will have their tongues out!"

"Is that why you arrested the Kingslayer? To have his tongue out?"

"I didn't have him arrested." Agitated, he raked his fingers through his hair. "This must have been Jon's work."

The more he thought on this, the angrier he grew and not just at the Kingslayer. If Jon arrested Lannister, they would say it was because Robert was too craven to face him in combat and that he arrested any who spoke against him or his.

"I will have words with Jon on the morrow," he said. "The Hand should be serving the king not taking action behind his back."

"Go now, lest he arrest someone else before you get to him," Lyanna japed, though no humor shined in her grey eyes. "I would be alone."

She turned her back on him and strode to the fireplace.

"No, we-"

"Come." Ned's hand fell on Robert's arm. "The hour is late. We should go to him at once."

Reluctantly, he followed, only managing to grow angrier.

* * *

Jon Arryn had no wish to undermine the king, only to properly guide his son, even if it meant protecting Robert and the realm from Robert himself. But even so, the Hand knew the king would not thank him when he learned of what he had just done.

In truth, Jon harbored doubts of how prudent this move was himself.

With a weary heart, he climbed the stairs to his solar in the Tower of the Hand.

Despite the late hour, he knew the news of Ser Jaime's arrest would wind its way through the Red Keep like a serpent. Robert would learn of it by the morn. Mace Tyrell would see to that.

He found Lysa sitting upon the couch with her legs folded up to her chest and Ned's son sleeping peacefully in the crook of her arm. A smile brightened her pretty face as her eyes danced over the letter she held.

Jon watched her for a moment, attempting to summon an amount of affection for this young bride of his. But, as usual, no matter how deeply he dredged Jon could feel little more than an uncomfortable blend of pity and shame.

The shame settled upon him a year past just a day before they wed. At least Hoster Tully had been honorable enough to inform Jon that his future lady wife had not only cast away her maidenhead, but conceived a child out of wedlock that needed to be washed away with moon tea. But for all Tully's honesty, the man still attempted to turn his daughter's despoiled state into a benefit.

"She is fertile," the man had said. "She is sure to provide you with an heir after the war is done, if not sooner."

Fertile or no, Jon would have refused her had Tully not made their marriage part of the alliance pact. In the end, though it bludgeoned his honor, he wed the girl and took up her shame. He did it for the lads. For Ned and Robert who would have surely been doomed without the Tully levies.

Jon had hoped to save Robert from a similar shame. He had urged as fervently as he dared for a match between him and the Lannister girl. Not only would she bring the strength and wealth of the west, she was untouched and without the burden of a bastard. But the boy was stubborn.

Now a Lannister alliance was further than impossible and he already tasted the foulness of shame, in public no less.

Lysa let out a soft gasp as she noticed him standing in the doorway.

"Forgive me, my lady, I did not mean to disturb you," he said.

She watched him warily as he closed the door behind him and made for the bedchamber. As usual, he expected her to wait until he was safely asleep before retiring to bed. Jon was not the only one who wished their marriage had never come to be. The girl was disgusted by him and did not have the grace to hide it. But he could not blame her. She was young and vibrantly beautiful. He was old and only growing older.

"M-my lord?" Lysa stammered.

Jon halted at the chamber door in surprise. His lady wife rarely initiated conversation. "My lady?"

"I have received a letter," she said. "From a-a friend. From childhood. He is one of your bannermen."

Lysa paused and Jon stared at her. Was there some point she was struggling to make? Should he inquire to help her along?

This was where the pity for his wife stemmed from. As lovely and young as she was, Lysa also suffered from painful shyness, often stammering through what she wanted to say.

The arrival of an Arryn household guard saved Jon the need to respond.

"My lord." The guard bowed his head. "The king wishes to-"

"Tell me you didn't arrest the Kingslayer." Robert marched around the man, Ned striding in behind him. "Tell me you didn't make me look so craven I would sooner throw a man in a cell than meet him in combat. Tell me!"

Jon regarded him calmly. "I had my reasons, if you would care to hear them."

"The Others take your reasons! I-"

The wail of a babe sliced through his words. They turned to see Lysa attempting to soothe little Robb by rocking him.

Quickly, she rose and moved to leave the room with the sobbing babe. "Forgive me, my lords, Your Grace."

"Why is Robb not in the nursery or with is nurse at this hour?" Ned asked once she left.

Jon inwardly cringed. Since Lady Catelyn died, Lysa had taken charge of the boy's care. She had gotten into the habit of dismissing wet nurses for the boy, claiming each one had been insolent with her, arguing over how the lad should be reared. She even dismissed her septa, sending the old woman back to the Riverlands.

Jon struggled to explain this without painting his wife as a mad woman. "Lady Lysa mourns her sister and wishes to give the best of care to Lady Catelyn's son."

"I will have him sent to Wylla," Eddard said. "She does well with my other son."

Jon debated cautioning against this. Lysa had gone positively wild when he made the same suggestion. But Robert moved forward with the conversation before he had a chance.

"That is all well and good, but this business with Jaime Lannister. Gods, were you not telling me how foolish it was to arrest Tywin on just the word of sellswords? We mustn't provoke the Rock. Wasn't that it? Between the two of us I should say the Rock is well and provoked."

"I would not have you risk yourself in a duel against Jaime Lannister," Jon said patiently.

"I would have taken up his challenge," Eddard said. "By rights, I should-"

"By rights, the swellswords who accused Lord Tywin should fight his champion or name their own." The boys began to argue, but Jon continued. "As to the arrest, there is more evidence against the Kingslayer than there is against Lord Tywin or Clegane and Lorch."

He explained Lannister's crimes and the various witnesses Varys had produced.

"There was no way around arresting him," Jon said. "We cannot begin your reign by allowing crimes such as his to go unpunished."

"That isn't what you said when we pardoned the Kingslayer," Robert grumbled.

He had the right of it there. "That was different. That was war and Aerys was our foe. Those pyromancers were not soldiers or maniacal tyrants. They were your people and deserve your justice."

Robert took a deep breath and continued to scowl. "We have two caged lions and the enmity of the Rock. Now what are we to do?"

"Try them," Jon said with an air of confidence he didn't truly possess. "Just as soon as we have you wed and crowned."


	10. Chapter 10

**Ch. 10**

Lyanna knew her betrothed would return to her chambers that night in hopes of taking up where they had left off. She laid awake waiting and brooding.

Light from the fireplace sent shadows and golden hues dancing across the ceiling. Too many nights since the attack were spent staring at those lights as she struggled to find sleep through the pain and inability to find a comfortable position. The pain had since departed, but the discomfort remained. With the binding back in place (her maid, Elinor, had been aghast when she saw that Lyanna had removed the cumbersome cloth) and the pillows positioned around her just as Pycelle had instructed, she could rarely fall asleep easily.

"Lyanna?" Robert said in a hushed voice as he cracked the door open.

"I'm awake."

"Good." He shut the door behind him. "I thought we could-"

"You shouldn't marry me."

There was a pause of surprise at her abrupt statement.

"What? Of course I should. What are you talking about?"

Lyanna felt the bed shift under his weight as he climbed onto the bed beside her.

"I am nothing more than an endless problem for you and the realm," she said. "What's worse, you have no wish to talk about those problems with me, though I'm the cause."

"Lya…"

"Do you pretend the problems don't exist?" she asked. Lyanna could understand that. Most of her waking hours were spent banishing thoughts she would rather not think of. "Or would rather not speak of them with me because you agree with what the lords and ladies of court say of me?"

"No! What nonsense is this? Of course I don't agree with the Kingslayer. I love you and I shall marry you."

A silence followed filled only with the occasional crack from the fireplace.

"And you with for that as well?" he asked.

She thought about that. "I would wish to wed you more if you didn't keep things from me … and if I wasn't certain that my presence here is ruining everything you and Lord Arryn are trying to build just because I wish to be myself."

Robert's hand cupped her cheek and urged her to face him. Shadows marred his features, but she could just make out his blue eyes in the flickering light.

"If anyone is ruining what Jon wants to build, that man would be me," he said. "Gods know I never wanted that iron seat. I never wanted to be king and I fill the role ill. Jon or Ned would have been better kings. They know what must be done. They have the steel to make decisions they have no liking for."

_Such as taking brides not of their choosing,_ Lyanna thought.

"Lady Catelyn would have made a fine queen," Lyanna said after a silence. "She was always so certain of what was the best thing to do. Even when I disagreed with it." She let out a sigh. "Has the door closed on the chance to refuse the throne?" Lyanna asked, only partly japing.

"Aye, it has. That damned door closed the day Jon raised his banners in rebellion. I've tried opening it more than a few times since but every time I try talking any kind of sense to them, Ned and Jon only tell me I have the best claim. As though anyone cares about that wrought. The Tyrells hold Highgarden, but to hear the Florents tell it, they have one of the weakest claims in the Reach."

That was true. Yet at least the Tyrells were popular.

"Now that you speak of the Tyrells, do you still plan to wed Stannis to Lady Janna?" Since the Tyrell women had bothered mentioning their distaste for the match, Lyanna thought they must wish for her to intercede on their behalf if she could.

Robert groaned and rolled away from her to lie on his back. "Jon says we must bind ourselves to Highgarden, but gods… There is little chance of that now."

"Did Stannis offend them?"

"I did. Mace… gods damn the man. He wouldn't let me be and I told him Stannis had no liking for his sister. That must have stung his pride, which means I must needs spend time making him my friend again. It shan't take long. He's just so desperate and eager. It drives me mad."

She didn't doubt that it would be a simple, if tedious task. Making men love him did seem to be Robert's gift.

"Mayhaps telling Lord Tyrell the truth was for the best," Lyanna said. "Stannis has no wish to marry into that House and Lady Janna doesn't seem to have any wish for the match either. She shouldn't have to marry a man who will only despise her for what her brother did during the war. You wouldn't wish for your own brother to be unhappy either, I'm sure."

Robert laughed. "Stannis was born to be unhappy. I swear the man prefers it."

Lyanna thought of the three Baratheon brothers and couldn't deny that Stannis was not nearly so boisterous and extroverted as his siblings. Though only a lad, Renly seemed just as charismatic and sociable as Robert. Stannis was the complete opposite of the pair, always stern and curt. Any seriousness their parents had to spare must have gone into making him. But that didn't mean he warranted an unhappy marriage.

"But binding ourselves to Highgarden is more necessary than it ever was," Robert continued.

He told her of Ser Jaime's arrest and Lord Arryn's reason for it, as well as the presence of Lord Tyrell in the Kingslayer's chambers when the gold cloaks came. In turn, Lyanna told him of what Lady Olenna said about Ser Jaime seeking an alliance between Houses Lannister and Tyrell.

"Lady Olenna spoke as if she was against any alliance. Those words you exchanged with her son must have pushed him toward the lions."

"All the more reason to wed Stannis to Tyrell's sister," he said.

_All the more reason for you not to marry me,_ Lyanna thought guiltily. Robert should wed Lady Janna. Like Catelyn, she would make a worthy queen. Other women responded to her as well as men responded to Robert. And she did everything – embroidery, riding, her courtesies – so prettily. The court would have no need to whisper about a queen like her.

That suggestion weighed heavily on Lyanna's tongue, just waiting to be nudged out on her mouth. Yet, the sudden image of Robert and Janna together – both so comely, both so tall – made her heart clench strangely.

Lyanna silently returned her gaze to the ceiling and the flickering light, a new concern creeping into her mind. She had grown far too fond of her betrothed through the last months. Foolish of her when she was knew what sort of man he was. She learned of his nature years before when Robert came to Winterfell for the announcement of their betrothal.

On the first night of his stay, the storm lord's squire had been quite talkative once Lyanna and Brandon shared enough strong wine with him. In the stables that night, the lad told them all manner of stories about Robert's misadventures at the Eyrie with Ned. Those tales soon turned to women and then to the bastard child he called upon so routinely, though he had since moved on from the mother to other women.

Lyanna knew that type of man and knew he would never forsake wenching, not even for the marriage bed. She knew it because Brandon was just the same. Love him all she might, Lyanna had no illusions about her brother. He carried on in his affairs after his betrothal just as he had before. Robert would be the same. Growing to love him would be as much of a mistake as it had been for Barbery to love Brandon.

"Tell me of your bastard," Lyanna said suddenly.

"Oh, she's a pretty little thing, that one. Full of nerve and spirit." She could hear him smiling as he spoke. "You shall love her."

He began to wax on and on about this little girl, this Mya, with her black hair and blue eyes and all the clever or silly things she did. If Lyanna had wished that hearing of the product of his indiscretion would lessen her esteem for him, she was mistaken. She found herself laughing with him over this child she would soon meet.

The last thing Lyanna remembered before falling asleep was chuckling with him about a story he told of throwing Mya in the air again and again as he did with Rickard, until the child wet herself from laughing so hard.

* * *

If the gods were kind, Cersei wouldn't be sold in order for the lions to climb in bed with the squids. If the gods were good, she and Jaime could wed and eventually rule as queen and king of the Rock. If the goods were truly just, Cersei would rule in her own right with her brother as consort.

But as she learned when her mother died, the gods seldom offered her anything good.

Cersei's uncle had sent a raven to Pyke during their brief rest at Deep Den. Balon Greyjoy's reply awaited them upon their arrival at Casterly Rock. The relief that smoothed Uncle Kevan's features made Cersei's mouth tighten.

Making common cause with the Iron Islands did seem a good idea, but it was not worth marrying her to a Greyjoy and forcing her to live on some desolate island for the rest of her days. She was a lioness. She had no use for a squid for a husband or a few islands as a kingdom. But Uncle Kevan did not care to hear her views on the subject.

"Lord Greyjoy's brother and eldest son are on their way to treat with us," Kevan said on their first evening home. "You shall show the boy the best of the Rock. Make yourself pleasing within the boundaries of propriety."

She could hear what he left unsaid. See that you do not drive this one off as you did with the last two.

Though Cersei detested the idea, she heeded her uncle to prove there was nothing lacking with her. If these talks did lead to a betrothal, she was certain her father would set it aside once he was free.

They Greyjoys arrived a few days after Cersei and Kevan. While her uncles were shut up with Lord Balon's younger brother, Victorian, Cersei was left the task of entertaining the heir of Pyke.

Merely looking at Rodrick Greyjoy made her cross. His black hair, blue eyes, and the House colors he donned reminded her obnoxiously of Robert Baratheon, though he was not so monstrously tall.

Though Rodrick of course appeared to appreciate her beauty, he expressed an open contempt for Casterly Rock, the Westerlands, and the Lannisters themselves.

"It's no wonder you Greenlanders crawl to us for help," he said as Cersei showed him the Hall of Heroes. "Your father was a fool. Why did he bother taking King's Landing and the throne only to turn thrall and kneel to another?"

Cersei turned a pair of green eyes upon him and took up a tone as though she were speaking to a simpleton. "Half the realm rose in rebellion to seat King Robert on the throne. When we joined the rebellion, the war was all but one. _Naturally_ we joined the side of the victors."

"Your father descended on King's Landing like a vulture upon a corpse." He laughed at his own words. "Then made way for greater bests. If your father had taken the capital and held it as his own, he wouldn't be a prisoner now."

She considered severally cutting retorts. Cersei instead decided to forgo their stroll down the Hall of Heroes and instead show Rodrick the oubliettes beneath the Rock. She made certain to tell him of all the notable knights, lords, and even kings who died weeping within their rather tight confines.

If she must marry this arrogant boy, it was best remove any delusions he might have of the strength of her House or Cersei herself.

* * *

When Lyanna awoke on the morn, she found Robert still sleeping beside her. The morning light draped over them from the balcony windows. He lay on top of the blankets with his black velvet doublet still partially unfastened.

Awkwardly rising from the pillows and propping herself up on one arm, Lyanna watched him for a moment. He was handsome. She conceded. And during the last couple of weeks, he had proved himself quite pleasing.

_I shan't love him_, she told herself. _That would be charging toward unhappiness_.

She traced the king's broad jaw and ran the tips of her finders down his neck toward the course hair in the opening of his doublet. But all of his faults need not stop her from enjoying him.

Robert's blue eyes blinked open and took her in with a smile.

His calloused fingers traced down her cheek and cupped her neck. "Good morrow, my lady."

She let him pull her down for a kiss before whispering against his lips, "I wish to lay with you, Your Grace."

There were certainly more seductive or romantic ways of saying it, but that served just as well.

Robert's grin widened as he sat up, her body still pressed against his.

Her betrothed unwound her bindings with a blend of gentleness and impatience as she struggled to unfasten the remaining buttons of his doublet with her unrestrained hand.

_This time I will be in control_, Lyanna told herself when she noticed a tremble in her fingers. _This will be good_.

Robert shrugged off the garment tossed it to the floor. The tunic quickly followed. Lyanna's gaze moved over his corded arms and broad shoulders.

_How different men can be,_ she thought, running her fingers over his warm skin. She would have followed with her lips but he was already sliding her shift over her hips. When her left arm was carefully eased through the fabric and she was bare from the waist upward, she tried not to blush as his eyes roved over her. Lyanna thought his hands would go straight to her breasts. During the last weeks, his hands often found purchase there until while they exchanged kisses and touches.

Instead, he ran his fingers over the upraised skin on her shoulder where the arrow had struck.

"The Grand Maester said I am all but well," she explained. "The wound closed clean and he only wants to keep my arm from moving as a precaution."

She didn't mention that Pycelle also said her left arm would never regain the strength it once had. She wanted to confirm that for herself.

Robert's brow remained furrowed. "I thought you dead when they carried you through the gates. I saw men bleed out from arrows that cut through their boiled leather and chainmail. Many of them." He kissed her shoulder. "But you lived. By the gods you are strong."

_Lucky, more like._ But Lyanna thought the sentiment sweet, so she kissed him again and began unlacing his breeches. Soon they discarded what remained of their clothing. Robert hooked his fingers through the waistband of her smallclothes and tugged them down. She leaned back on the bed and allowed him to pull garment away.

The morning sun streamed in through the window, illuminating each flaw upon her body. She made no move to hide this time. If he wanted her, he should see her completely. They should see and accept each other if they were to have a chance at all.

It was a funny thing feeling his eyes moving over her, knowing he had lain with women far prettier and far less scarred.

Yet, Robert had naught but admiration in his eyes as he rand a hand over her calve, his thumb brushing over an old scar from childhood. Drawing her leg up, her pressed a kiss against the scar. He repeated the gesture a few times more, as made his way up her legs. A steady heat grew in her belly under the caresses of his hands and the sensation of his mouth against her skin.

She shifted against him as he drew closer.

Robert laughed. "Eager."

"Oh, shut up and do it."

He raised his eyebrows. "Do what, sweetling?"

The king laughed all the harder when she kicked at him.

But instead of touching her with his hands as he often did, Robert bowed his head between her thighs.

"What are you-"

Lyanna sucked in a ragged breath and her body tensed as his tongue took in the shape of her. She couldn't recall tangling her hands through his thick black hair, but as he moved purposeful and hungry against her, soon touching her with his fingers as well, Lyanna's grip tightened and tightened until she could no longer think properly.

"Seven hells!" she cried as the tension fell apart in waves of shudders throughout her body.

Lyanna expected to find him laughing smugly when she looked up, but in his blue eyes she saw only a lust that matched her own.

Robert grasped a fist full of the blanket of either side of her and pulled, bringing Lyanna toward him.

"You are shaking," he said as he leaned over her.

"I'm fine," Lyanna insisted. "I'm nervous is all."

"Don't be," he said as though that would make it so. "I mean to please you and please you well."

Lyanna laced her arms about his neck and attempted a japing tone as she said, "You had better. Your Grace comes to me with a reputation, meaning you had best please me very, very well."

She kissed him again as she grew accustomed to having him above her. Robert managed to keep his weight off of her by resting on his forearms, but she could feel the heat of his skin. Still moving her lips against his, Lyanna ran her fingers along the muscles of his chest toward the stiffness between them. Robert growled into her mouth at the touch. Startled, she gasped and pulled the hand away.

Tentatively, she reached for him again and took him in hand. Running her fingers over the length, she tried to get used to the feel of him.

"Gods…" Robert rasped.

It was Lyanna's to laugh at him. "You like that, do you?"

Shifting beneath him, she positioned their bodies in line with each other and pressed him against her heat. She gasped in surprise at the rush of pleasure as she guided him inside of her. Holding her gaze, he withdrew and thrust again. Robert moved more easily within her than she expected.

Wanting to retain control, Lyanna moved her hips upward to meet his when he repeated the motion. The moan that tore from him encouraged her to do it again. But when she tried to do it for a third time, Robert pulled away and moved in again before she could anticipate him. The king openly laughed at her surprise and she at his when Lyanna did the same.

They continued moving with and against each other, and all the while that now familiar heat coiling in her belly grew tighter and tighter.

She came before Robert, shuddering around him. He followed soon after, groaning into her neck.

As they lay together afterward, her head on his chest and their bodies slick with sweat, Lyanna felt a wave of relief. She had been dreading this so long, thinking of all the ways terrible ways it could go wrong. But laying with him was actually quite fun.

"I rather liked that," she said.

"Aye, I heard," the king said, his hand stroking her back. "You howl just like your sigil."

Lyanna looked up at him. "I do not."

"You do," he said. "You howl just like a she-wolf and don't deny it."

"That's a lie!" she cried.

"Are you impugning my honor, my lady?"

"In order to impugn your honor you would have to have some first. I do not howl."

"Is that so?" He grinned. "Then I shall have no choice but to prove the point and make you howl again."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"Dearest Ned." Lyanna cupped Robb's fair cheek as Eddard held him. "I swear you mean for Lady Lysa to murder me. This will be my fault, you know."

A smile touched her brother's lips, a rare sight in these times. "There is no fault. Robb needs a capable nurse. Wylla has proven herself capable."

After losing a series of nurses Ned had decided give over the care of his oldest son to Jon's nurse, Wylla. Since Lysa was offended by the existence of Ned's bastard, they could not move to the Tower of the Hand, so Robb must needs take residence within the nursery of Maegor's Holdfast. Still, Lady Arryn was quite fond of her nephew and was likely wasn't taking Robb's loss well. Lyanna could only sympathize with that even as she anticipated a drastic increase in sullen looks and cold glares directed toward her henceforth.

But Lyanna set those thoughts aside. Supper with the Tullys that night would allow for plenty of opportunity to deal with that. Instead, she and Ned spent the afternoon playing with their babes in Lyanna's solar. Her older brother seemed in high spirits that day. He even laughed more than once.

"Is it the wedding that has set you in such a good temper or is it something else? I swear I don't know who is more pleased about the wedding, you or Robert."

"I should hope you are pleased as well." Eddard glanced at her over Robb's auburn locks. "You and Robert are … happy?"

It had the sound of a statement and a question both. Lyanna's face burned at the memory of her brother walking n on them the night before when he came with the news of Jaime Lannister's arrest. Most like, he thought they had been laying together for some time instead of just that morning.

Lyanna lifted her chin when she said, "Aye, we are. Happier than I thought we could be. I think he rather likes my oddities and I'm fond of him. And this is what Father wished for. So yes, I am pleased, and Father would be too."

Eddard nodded sadly. "Aye, he would. He planned for a daughter in Storm's End. Now he has one in the Red Keep instead."

As happy about the marriage as he would be, what Lord Rickard Stark would not be pleased about was the location of the ceremony. Robert would have wed her in Winterfell's godswood had their lives on as planned. But he was king now. That meant they must wed in the Great Sept of Baelor and be crowned by the High Septon.

Lyanna thought of her father and Brandon a great deal of late. The thought clawed at her heart as she realized Lord Rickard would not be the one to remove her maiden's cloak.

As they continued playing with the lads, spinning tops for them to grasp for, Lyanna wondered what plans Father had for Ned and Benjen. Had there been any keeps set aside for them to hold or matches Lord Rickard hoped to make for them? Whatever those plans were, they were for naught now with Ned taking up Brandon's responsibilities and Benjen talking of possibly joining the Night's Watch someday.

Her heart twisted like a rag at the thought of them continuing their lives so far away from her. But that always would have been their future even without the war.

* * *

Lyanna swore no bride in the world had ever had the misfortune of slipping into and out of her wedding gown near as often as she did. With the delay of the ceremony and the steady loss of weight gained while carrying Rickard, the seamstresses were forced to fit and refit the gown and her new wardrobe until the day of the wedding finally arrived.

"I am sorry," Lyanna said as Elinor laced her into the gown under the head seamstress's watchful eye. "This must be tedious for you."

"Not at all, Your Grace." The seamstress smoothed the ivory samite along her hips. "The results are the better for the delay. Your figure has much improved, if you don't mind me saying."

Even as she thanked the woman, Lyanna noticed Lysa smirking in the mirror. That was the first smile she had seen on Lady Arryn in week. Naturally it would be at Lyanna's expense.

That morning, the queen-to-be broke her fast with several of the high born ladies who had come with their families to witness the wedding. Afterward, Lysa had stayed to help ready Lyanna for the ceremony, yet had done little more than watch.

Once the gown was laced, the seamstress motioned for her assistants to come forward with the maiden's cloak. Cloth-of-silver trimmed the edges of the white velvet. A splatter of pearls over the fabric made the embroidered direwolf look as though she ran through falling snow. As pretty as the wintery garment was, Lyanna couldn't help but think of how inappropriate it was for a despoiled woman such as herself to don a maiden's cloak. Particularly so when she had woken that morning with a man in her bed for the second morning in a row. She could imagine all the smirks and veiled remarks.

The servants clasped the cloak about her throat. Shrouded in her father's colors, Lyanna decided not to care what anyone else might think.

_I'm a she-wolf_, she thought. _I need not be ashamed for anything._

The seamstress and her assistants departed soon after with promises to return after the ceremony with the black and gold gown for the feast.

"You look very well my lady," Elinor said.

"Thank you," Lyanna called after her as the handmaid left to fetch the new grey riding boots.

She did look well. Pearls that matched the ones upon the cloak were speckled through her hair, her handmaid had dressed quite fashionably. She looked very well and not at all like herself.

Through the mirror, Lyanna watched Lady Arryn staring blankly ahead and the future queen ordered herself to be kind. She and Lysa would live together for some time. They had better get along.

"Your uncle wears the white cloak very well," Lyanna said.

Brynden Tully had accepted Robert's offer of a place among the kingsguard. Lyanna saw him for the first time in his new armor the evening before at supper. His vibrant red hair and the black clasp shaped like a fish contrasted sharply with the white scale armor and snowy cloak. During a tense moment, the knight had that the request was a welcome as it would forever call an end to his brother's insistence that he take a wife.

Lady Arryn seemed to brighten at the mention of her uncle's new position.

"Yes, our House if honored at the king's choice in mine uncle," she said. "We-we are very happy."

"Having your uncle so close while you start your new life should be a relief." Lyanna thought of Ned and Ben leaving her soon. "I will miss my brothers when they return to Winterfell with Jon and Robb."

"With Robb-" Lysa stopped as Elinor returned with the boots and assisted Lyanna into them.

"Do come visit with Robb as often as you like," Lyanna made herself say. "He was so happy to see you at supper yesterday."

"I noticed Robb is much bigger than- than the other ones," Lysa said looking down at her hands. "How old is Lord Stark's … other son?"

Elinor looked up at Lyanna, startled. She excused herself.

Lyanna struggled to keep the irritation from her voice. "Why do you ask, Lady Arryn?"

Lysa didn't look up from her hands. "It's just- Edmure pointed out that Ashara Dayne couldn't be the b-bastard's mother if he is younger than Robb. I-I mean, Lord Stark was on campaign for near a year and- and…"

"And you want gossip_._" Lyanna had wondered the same and asked Ned some time ago. Now she knew how impertinent she must have sounded. But Ned had done nothing to sate her curiosity.

"I would not speak of Lady Ashara," Eddard had said.

"Not even with me?" Lyanna had asked.

"No." A chill clung to his voice. "I dishonored myself, my wife, and Lady Ashara. Gods, would that I had sent Jon directly to Winterfell. Hat I, the court wouldn't talk so."

"The court would talk," she said. "But mayhaps not so fiercely."

Lyanna wondered if Edmure truly took note of the difference in their ages or if he was merely an excuse for Lysa to inquire.

"I suppose I'm ready," Lyanna said instead of answering Lady Arryn's question. "As great a help as you've been, I won't keep you."

Finally alone, Lyanna took another look at herself in the mirror once she was gone.

So much had changed in the last two years. She had become an orphan and a mother, a victim and a whore. So very soon, she would be a wife and queen. The last would make her father proud. She resolved to put in more of an effort at doing it well.

* * *

Resplendent in gold and black, Robert awaited Lyanna in the castle yard beside a pair of horses with Lord Arryn and Ser Barristan. Worry creased the Hand's features while fury claimed the king's.

When her betrothed noticed her approach, he visibly attempted to conceal the rage and smiled for her.

"Lya!" Robert called, striding forward to meet her. "How beautiful you are. Come, come, I have a gift for you."

He took her hand and led her toward the horses.

"There is something wrong." She watched Lord Jon and Ser Barristan move away while they continued talking in hushed voices. "What is it? Tell me."

"Nothing. Nothing to worry you now. I will tell you after the ceremony."

"You will tell me now." Stubbornly, she tried not to pay heed to the lovely white mare beside Robert's black destrier. But the steed was so fine, Lyanna's eyes continued to slide toward her.

Robert frowned down at her, the anger clouding over those blue eyes once more. She held his gaze with equal stubbornness. He relented.

"It's those yellow-haired shits," Robert said in a hushed growl. "Lord Tywin and the Kingslayer escaped. We've sent riders out down the Goldroad and other directions. But gods know they'll find nothing." He groaned in exasperation. "Would that I could go after them myself."

Lyanna drew in a breath to settle her temper. "How can you say this is nothing to worry me? That man killed Lady Catelyn, Princess Elia, and two young babes. He would have murdered me as well. But I am not to worry?"

"No. You should not." He cupped her face and bowed his head. Instinctively, Lyanna moved to meet the kiss. "Now look here, girl, I-"

"I am a woman, not a girl," she said with a great deal of impatience.

His expression was a blend of exasperation and amusement. "Aye, you are. I ought to know. And I will know it again soon."

The way he smiled at her made Lyanna's cheeks burn. She struggled not to smile. "

"Two highborn prisoners have escaped and this is all you can think of?"

Robert's mouth tightened as he looked beyond her. "Not all. But look here _woman _– Lya, between me and the kingsguard we have you well protected. You need not fear Tywin Lannister."

Lyanna glanced back at the two members of the kingsguard who escorted her from the queen's chambers, Ser Mandon Moore and Ser Richard Horpe. Moore stared ahead with a gaze that betrayed no life behind blank pale eyes. Horpe was the opposite. Freshly knighted, he looked upon the world with hard eyes despite his youth. Would they garner the fierce reputations of their predecessors? Thoughts of her three former guards made her turn away from them.

Robert drew her attention back to the white courser beside them. "A gift. Slender and swift, like you. She is beautiful is she not?"

Lyanna finally gave herself leave to look upon the gift. The mare _was_ beautiful with lively intelligent brown eyes. She had been draped in Stark colors in preparation for the procession. Lyanna stroked her shoulder and neck so the mare might get used to her. The horse's ears pointed forward as she regarded Lyanna.

"Thank you, Robert. She's perfect."

"I wished to give you a sand steed and I would have but for the poor relations in Dorne." Robert helped Lyanna climb into the saddle. "But she is as fine as any steed in the Seven Kingdoms, even Dorne. You give her a ride and tell me she isn't. She will bring you safely to Baelor."

They traveled in a long procession headed by a pair of standard bearers carrying gold and black cloth striding beside two members of the kingsguard – Ser Barristan and the Blackfish. Robert and his black destrier road behind, waving and throwing pennies to the smallfolk. His brothers followed, Stannis rigid and dignified, Renly exuberant and bouncing. Rows of Baratheon household guards came behind.

Stark standard bearers followed on either side of Moor and Horpe, leading the way for Lyanna and her brothers. The northmen who would remain with Lyanna as her household guard took up the rear.

Lyanna couldn't help likening the ride to the Great Sept of Baelor to the first ride through King's Landing when she arrived in the capital.

The commons lined the streets in the thousands cheering and waving as they passed, throwing flowers upon the procession. Many called out Lyanna's name, but not nearly so fiercely as they called Robert's.

_Would they cheer so ardently if they knew the Kingslayer and the man who sacked their city were free?_ Lyanna wondered as she tried to smile for the crowd.

They will call Robert weak. They will say he isn't strong enough to hold and protect the realm. Not if he couldn't keep two prisoners from slipping from his grasp. And Robert must know that. That was why he waved and threw them coins with such a show of happiness. The commons must love him or he would lose them the moment word got out.

Lyanna tried to smile all the harder for his sake, but falseness was never something that settled easily upon her.

"Look!" a man slurred from a second story window. "A whore in a maiden's cloak!"

Rage instantly seized her by the chest. Lyanna might have returned the slap, but the man's friends quickly pulled him back inside and close the shutters.

Ned's hand rested atop one of her own as she gripped the mare's reins. She looked over to see him staring straight ahead, his face a block of ice. Ben looked much the same. Both of them managed to hold their tempers as they continued on, encouraging her to do the same.

Gods be praised Robert was too far away to hear.

Lyanna sucked in a deep breath and exhaled the rage still twisting in her chest. She must smile. She must stay calm.

Many of the commoners made that an easy task. They continued cheering her and her brothers. A man lifted his daughter up so that she might pass a bouquet of spring blooms. Lyanna gifted them with a healthy dose of those pennies Lord Jon had supplied her with.

The seven shining towers of the Great Sept of Baelor stretched into the sky ahead of them as they finally reached the marble plaza atop of Visenya's Hill.

Lyanna slipped from the mare into Ned's arms. Together the three of them mounted the marble steps.

Entering the sept on the arms of her brothers, she felt like an intruder. These were not her gods and this was not her place. Many of the northmen they passed looked as though they felt the same, some shifting uncomfortably beneath the great dome.

Lyanna met Robert before the marriage alter and the High Septon. The Mother and Father of the new gods loomed on either side of them as they recited the seven vows, invoked the seven blessings, and made the seven promises of love and devotion.

A week past, Lyanna had known nothing of these practices. She needed a few visits with a very patient septa to learn and memorize all that was required of her during the ceremony. But that didn't make the ordeal any less tedious.

As the wedding song was sung, her groom looked restless as well. His face showed blatant relief once the challenge went unanswered and the time came for the exchange of cloaks.

Eddard strode forward from his place beside Benjen and Howland. He unfastened the maiden's cloak from her throat as Robert accepted the bride's cloak from Stannis. With a grand flourish, draped Lyanna in the cloth-of-gold with the crowned stag of Baratheon worked upon the back in onyx beads.

"With this kiss I pledge my love," Lyanna said, as they closed the distance between each other. "And take you as my lord and husband."

Robert drew her into his arms. "With this kiss, I pledge my love, and take you for my lady and wife."

He brushed her lips in a way that was almost chaste compared with the fevered insistence of his usual kisses. But the way he looked at her was anything but chaste, even as the High Septon declared them to be one flesh, one heart, and one soul.

Now all that remained was the coronation.

Lord Jon had originally planned for the wedding and coronation to play out separately, two great celebrations linked by a grand tourney and a string of feasts. But with the delay and the growing unrest, the two ceremonies became one.

The High Septon had blessed and anointed Robert with the seven oils months before Lyanna arrived in King's Landing, marking the beginning of his reign. This served as a more visible and therefore official crowning.

All throughout the ceremony, Lyanna tried to think of the Lannisters' escape and what that would mean. But as the High Septon waxed on about the strength and justice found in King Robert and the beauty and grace of his queen, that was all she could think of. A dozen questions she had not thought to ask before assailed her mind. When did they escape? How? Were they not in separate cells a great distance from each other? Did they have help? Were they certain to have left the city?

But the only answer to her silent quandaries was the High Septon's description of Queen Lyanna's gentle and compliant nature.

Lyanna felt Robert shake beside her. She glanced up to see his mouth twitching. Squeezing his hand, Lyanna tried her hardest not to laugh as well.

The High Septon concluded his speech by pronouncing that the gods favored and blessed Robert as the true and rightful king of Westeros.

Lyanna and Robert knelt before the old man. Renly marched forward carrying a black velvet pillow that cushioned the newly forged Baratheon crowns. His High Holiness lifted Robert's first, a crown of gold twisted and shaped in a ring of antlers that contrasted sharply with his coal black hair once settled upon his head.

"All hail His Grace, Robert of the House Baratheon," the High Septon proclaimed, "the First of His Name, King of the Andals, and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm."

A cheer rose at the pronouncement that needed to be tempered in order for his High Holiness to continue with the less climactic task of crowning Lyanna with the golden circlet studded in black diamonds.

She expected to feel relief once the ceremony ended and they were permitted to rise. Yet as they turned to face the applauding realm, each pair of eyes in the room crawled over every inch of her all the more fiercely.

Suddenly suspicious, she wondered if any of those who smiled and offered congratulations had had a hand in Lord Tywin and the Kingslayer's escape.

Her belly twisted, but Lyanna reminded herself to return their smiles.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12 **

The Grand Maester declared Lyanna completely well the day after her wedding. The words came as a relief, but Pycelle made certain to temper her excitement.

"Though you are out of danger of further injury, your left arm shall never have the same strength as before." He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "You are fortunate the arrow struck your left shoulder instead of the right."

But she would need both arms to use a bow or carry both shield and sword.

To find the truth of it, Lyanna took her bow and quiver, and met Howland in the training yard. It was the morning of the tourney. Most of the men were by the river side beyond the city where pavilions rose and the tournament fields waited. That left the training yard free for Lyanna to discover just how right Pycelle was with only Howland to witness her shame. And there was much to witness.

She struggled to hold the bow steady with her left hand while she drew, but it was no use. She couldn't hold her form steady for anything and the arrows hardly even approached the targets. The more she tried the more her frustration grew and the further her shots strayed.

"You expect too much too soon." Howland struggled to match her quick pace as she fled the yard. "Give yourself time. You'll improve and outshoot us all soon."

"Of course you're right." Lyanna swallowed, forcing down Pycelle's objections. "I will get better. I just need more time, is all. I won't be able to enter the lists today, but what of it? It's not as though I would try that again anyhow."

* * *

Lyanna's cheer was drowned out by the roar of the crowd as Ser Barristan overthrew Thoros of Myr.

There was nothing like a tourney to pump excitement through the veins and chase away melancholy.

Barristan Selmy dominated the jousting field during the first day with few other contenders to match him. What's more, he held the love of the people who adored him whether he served dragonkings or the crowned stags.

There seemed to be no doubt Selmy would be named champion until a mystery knight entered the lists on the second. A man with a tall build in unadorned grey-blue plate, the knight would have drawn a second glance only for looking so plain standing amongst the intricately decorated competitors. Yet, he rode brilliantly, unhorsing man after man as though they were unseasoned children.

"I've never had any liking for mystery knights," Robert said beside her in the royal box. He was the only one not bring his hands together in praise for the unknown challenger who just relieved Mandon Moore of his horse. "What honor or glory is there in hiding behind a false name? It's cowardice, I say."

Lyanna couldn't help smiling. _Cowardice, was it?_ She debated a moment whether to tell him. The urge to see the shock on his face won out. And besides were they not supposed to be honest with each other?

"Sometimes one needs to hide who they are to do as they wish, Your Grace," she said in a low voice so their brothers, who sat on either side of them, didn't hear. "At the tourney of Harrenhal, I wouldn't have been able to compete in the jousting at all had I not pretended to be the Knight of the Laughing Tree."

Her husband's reaction was all that she could have wished.

His gaze snapped in her direction. Shock and incredulity warred on his face as he moved in mouth in an unsuccessful effort to form words.

Lyanna turned back to the jousting field. She could feel Robert's eyes still upon her.

"You're japing!" he insisted.

"Hush!" she scolded. "Lyn Corbray and Jason Mallister are next."

"Mallister has him. Tell me you are japing. You weren't really-"

"I was."

"No!"

"Would you mind shutting up?" Renly pouted. "We're trying to watch."

Quite, boy, or I'll send you back to the Red Keep."

"Don't be mean to your little brother," Lyanna said.

"Tell me the truth of this," he insisted.

"Tonight. Now hush."

Robert was right about Mallister. He unhorsed Ser Lyn on their first turn, sending the man reeling into the dirt.

By the time day had waned into dusk, four competitors remained to compete on the morrow: Ser Barristan, Lord Mallister, Bronze Yohn Royce, and the mystery knight.

* * *

They retired to Robert's pavilion after the night's feast and coupled in a mad haste. Lyanna insisted on taking him astride and refusing to allow him to flip them over. She sometimes wondered if he regretted showing her different ways they could come together or if he only complained of her wish to be above him as a pretext.

Afterward, as they lay atop the bed furs, she told him of the squires who bullied Howland and how she went about avenging him in a suit of mismatched pieces of armor.

"I would have been named champion had it not been for King Aerys and his damn-" Lyanna stopped and focused on the good of that time. "I would have won if only I could have competed the next day."

"Had you competed the next day, I would have challenged you," Robert said into her hair. They lay with her back to him and his arms circling her. "I swore it during the feast, you remember. I swore to unmask you."

"Aye, I remember. If you had, I would have knocked you on your arse."

Robert laughed at that. "You could have tried."

"I would have done a sight more than try." Lyanna turned around in the circle of his corded arms. Silently, she urged him onto his back and slip on top. "See how easy it is to put you on your back? I didn't even need a lance."

Her husband roared at that. "That's the trick. Letting you believe you have control so I can have you as often as possible."

Now she laughed. "That's your trick, is it?"

His hands threaded through her hair and drew her down for a kiss. "The more often we lay together the sooner we shall have our son."

Lyanna sat up abruptly. A baby. So soon. This shouldn't be surprising. Of course he wanted an heir to help secure this fragile reign. Still, she hated the idea that her only worth lie in producing children.

"And I thought you lay with me because you liked me."

"Like?" his hands ran along her sides sending a shiver over her skin. "I'd say it's a great deal more than liking. Let me show you."

"I know how you can show me."

"Aye, I do." Lyanna slipped down against Robert's side and rested her head against his chest. "Let us hold each other while we go to sleep. You have a melee to compete in on the morrow."

* * *

The next morning, the population of King's Landing had emptied from the city walls to watch the final three matches and the other events of the day.

When the mystery knight took the field against Lord Jason, Robert began making noises against the plain challenger again.

"We've been through this," Lyanna said. "There is nothing wrong with mystery knights."

"You had a reason," Robert said in a low voice. "What is his?"

"Or hers?"

She knew her husband's true agitation grew not from the jousting but from the lack of news he received from Jon Arryn's visit. The Hand of the King broke his fast with them that morning in the pavilion. He told them that ravens returned from a few of the riders they sent out. They brought only confirmation that Lord Tywin and Ser Jaime were nowhere to be found. Even Varys and his little birds were having no luck at all.

To add to that, Mace Tyrell politely refused Robert's offer to hunt with him after the tourney games finished because he and the other roses longed for Highgarden. Robert was not used to being refused anything, even things he truly didn't want. But the only one he could take his frustrations out on was this poor competitor.

The mystery knight broke two lances against Jason Mallister before finally knocking the silver eagle to the ground with clangor.

Lyanna cheered along with the rest of the crowd as the mystery knight did a victory turn around the field.

"Mayhaps you should unmask him," Lyanna said. "He sits a horse better than anyone on the field. You could offer this knight a white cloak."

The Kingsguard still had three spots to fill. They were struggling to maintain the greatness of the White Swords while also completing the seven in a timely order. Lyanna had suggested Maege Mormont as a candidate. The she-bear had shown great valor during the Rebellion, word had it. But the suggestion was quickly cast aside since Maege was, alas, a woman. Worse than that, she was also not an anointed knight.

"We can't pass out white cloaks for riding well," Robert said.

"Fine, but winning this tourney could earn him or her a place in my guard," she said.

"Piss on that." Robert waved his hand contemptuously. "Barristan has it."

The old knight in his white scaled armor had already set down Bronze Yohn Royce with relative ease. As he rode forth to meet the mystery knight, Lyanna had to admit he did so with an easy confidence.

Yet the confidence soon waned as the challengers broke lance after lance against each other. Twice Barristan seemed sure to undo his opponent, but the other man kept his seat.

Finally, on their ninth turn, the mystery knight's lance struck true, sending the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard hurtling into the dirt with a clank.

The cheer from the commons was deafening.

Ned leaned over and said, "You have the right of it. Have Jory or one of your other guards to make inquiries of this man and offer him a place in your guard."

Lyanna agreed.

As she turned to see who this knight planned to crown, the rider would crown, the rider was approaching the royal box. He seemed to slow as he drew closer, the ring of flowers hanging from his lance.

An old dread seemed to seep through her as she tried to hold her smile in place.

Just as he looked ready to halt before Lyanna, he sped up his horse's gait.

Feeling rather foolish, she released the breath she had been holding. To be jolted by a ring of flowers. How silly.

Lyanna watched as the champion slid the laurel of yellow roses from his lance onto Lady Janna's lap.

* * *

"He is the Mad King all over again!" Cersei cried when she learned of her brother's arrest.

The last war began this way. Aerys Targeryen did the same to the Starks. Capture father and son both, then murdered them. Robert Baratheon could be planning the same with both Lions of Lannister ensnared. He was kin to the dragons after all. He may share their madness.

But her lord uncles didn't want to listen to her concerns. They wanted to shut themselves up in Kevan's solar together and _talk_. There was nothing to discuss as far as Cersei was concerned. Her father would have marched on King's Landing already if they were the ones held captive.

The raven bringing the news that Jaime had been taken captive alongside their father arrived the day before. Already the news had spread like a plague throughout the Rock. Everyone from servants to those damnable Greyjoys knew.

"They are laughing at us," Cersei told Uncle Kevan when he finally immerged from his solar. By rights, Cersei should have been allowed to sit in on their meeting as well. Instead, she was charged with entertaining those squids with Aunt Genna. "Father never would have allowed them to laugh at us."

"Your father is in a cell," Kevan had the audacity to remind her.

_He would only benefit from Father Jaime's deaths,_ she realized. _He hopes they will be executed so he might bend the knee and take Casterly Rock for himself. Or worse, give the Westerlands t Tyrion so he could rule through him._

The only blessing from the presence of the Greyjoys was the absence of that evil little imp. Father didn't wish him to be presented before guests so he was confined to his quarters for the duration of their stay. Rodrik had asked after him early on, but Cersei said he was away as instructed.

Could mine uncle be so eager to please these Greyjoys and marry me off to remove me as a threat to his claim?

Oblivious to her suspicions, Kevan continued on.

"Pycelle's letter mentioned that the charges against Jaime are the murders of three pyromancers. One of them was King Aerys' Hand, so he may well have killed him during the Sack, which we can claim was rightly done. But did Jaime tell you anything of the other two?"

Jaime had told her of this. Everyone, King Robert and all of King's Landing, should thank him for those "murders."

If Uncle Kevan had not forbidden her from taking part in whatever he, Tygett, and Gerion were planning, she would have offered what she knew freely.

But he did not. And thus she didn't trust him.

"I know nothing of this, my lord uncle," she said.

He returned to his brothers and h is plots while Cersei returned to her chambers and fretted over how her plan could have gone so wrong. Could it have truly been so difficult to goad Robert Baratheon into single combat?

Later that evening, a second raven arrived from the Grand Maester. Uncle Kevan sent for her to come to his solar, worrying her even further.

Her aunt and uncles were already present when she entered the solar.

"What news of Father and Jaime?" she demanded.

Frowning, Kevan did not look up from the piece of paper in his hands. "We are to do nothing."

Fear and suspicion squirmed through her belly.

"But why?" she asked. "What did Pycelle say? Let me read it for myself."

Kevan finally lifted his gaze and regarded her a moment. He did as she asked.

"This is your father's hand."

And so it was. In Tywin Lannister's clean and purposeful script were written two sentences that offered no elaboration.

_All is well. Do nothing without my leave._


End file.
